For the first half of the twentieth century J. Allen St. John (as he often signed himself) was generally considered one of the finest illustrators of the fantastic adventure, but to remember him solely for his commercial artwork in this area of popular literature is to limit him unfairly. St. John began his artistic career as a capable painter of portraits for the socially prominent, and although later in his life he would provide artwork (pictorial dust jackets and internal illustrations in pencil) for writers as popular and ephemeral as Robert Ames Bennet, Madeleine Sharps Buchanan, Cyrus Townsend Brady, W. D. Hoffman, and George F. Worts, it should not be forgotten that he was once considered respectable enough to paint the portrait of noted artist, engineer, and author F. Hopkinson Smith. Nevertheless, in spite of his apparent artistic versatility, St. John's illustrations are surprisingly traditional, consistently old-fashioned, and...