Called the dean of American illustrators by critics and contemporaries, A. B. Frost has been described as the most American of the American illustrators of the turn of the century. Throughout his fifty-year career as an illustrator he displayed an unparalleled ability to capture the essence of the rural America of his time. His skill in portraying humorous situations set the standard for comedic art, and his characterizations of Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit have become inseparable from those stories.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 17 January 1851, Arthur Burdett Frost was the youngest child of the three surviving from ten born to John Frost and Sarah Ann Burdett Frost. Like most young boys, Frost liked to while away the hours drawing, and his family would often come upon him sprawled on the floor happily doodling pictures of Indians. His early childhood was happy, but when Frost...