During his thirty-five-year career Howard Pyle became one of America's most prominent illustrators. Moreover, he achieved recognition as a writer, teacher, and mural painter. For him the purpose of art was to entertain and to inspire. He argued that artists should not simply make beautiful pictures or pleasing decorations but should also convey ideas about the past and present in pictorial form. More than three thousand of his illustrations were reproduced in leading magazines and books of the day. In addition he wrote twenty books, of which half were for children, and many short stories. Near the end of his life he worked on four mural projects, as well as large easel paintings. He also made an important contribution as a gifted teacher of more than one hundred students.

Howard Pyle was born on 5 March 1853 in Wilmington, Delaware, the first child of William Pyle, a Quaker who operated...