The Masque of the Red Death

A wraparound cover Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s 1842 short story — a parable of inevitability set inside a gothic abbey.

The piece centres on the Red Death itself — a figure that materialises out of architecture, mortar and shadow, bleeding into the form of the cathedral that should have kept it out. The body of the work explores Poe’s central image: decay finding its way through every defence, no matter how lavish.

The wraparound treats the front cover as the moment of confrontation and the back as the corridor that led there — lit by guttering torches, with the silhouette of a figure already retreating.