An illustration from a 1911 issue of Life magazine.

An illustration from a 1908 issue of Life magazine.

Ending a scene "with a jolt—the ubiquitous cat jump (a feline leaps out of the darkness with a screech). This is the oldest trick in the book." —John Kenneth Muir, Horror Films of The 1980s (2007)

The illustration is from Appleton's magazine, 1907.  The caption reads: "With a savage whining scream The Death hurtled through the air." 

An illustration from an 1895 issue of The Canadian magazine.  The caption reads: "And thus he passed into the night again for evermore."

We stumbled upon this bookplate in an old* magazine volume from the Harvard College Library.  Any writer who has been under a deadline might relate to the symbolism.
*1855

"The Death of Death":  an illustration by Cyril Goldie in an 1899 issue of Quartier Latin magazine.

An illustration from an 1883 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "The night's Plutonian shore."

An illustration from an 1871 issue of Our Boys and Girls magazine.

"The Substance and the Shadow":  an illustration from a 1901 issue of Life magazine.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook: Death finds a lucky penny.  Dedicated to the mysterious Gordon Meyer, who turned us on to the wonder that is Tim Powers.

An illustration from a 1907 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "The two of them looked at each other with much interest."

"Who are you?": an illustration from an 1897 issue of English Illustrated magazine.

An illustration from an 1896 issue of Scribner's magazine.  The caption reads: "They meet under death's shadow."

An illustration from an 1890 issue of Illustrated American magazine.

An illustration from a 1910 issue of Hampton's magazine.  The caption reads: "Luminous waves rolled toward me, covered with the faces of the dead.  I saw blue eyes all around the room."

An illustration from an 1890 issue of English Illustrated magazine.  The caption reads: "The secret of life and death was before her."

An illustration from an 1872 issue of Frank Leslie's Pleasant Hours magazine.

An illustration from an 1879 issue of Frank Leslie's Pleasant Hours magazine.

An illustration from a 1912 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "I saw the figure gliding toward me, its death-mask grinning as if with pleasure to find at least the room inhabited by a human—I marked the eyeholes of doom, seeming to glow red in the fire-lit room, and the bony hand holding on high what I guessed, I knew, to be a cup of poison meant for me!"