A hard-drinking, cynical newspaperman, W. W. Denslow is today remembered for his visual creation of the Land of Oz as illustrator of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). The great success of that book and Denslow's definitive picturing of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, the humbug Wizard, and the Wicked Witch of the West have overshadowed his other contributions to American illustration. Influenced by the decorativeness of 1890s posters--to which craze he was a major contributor--and by the work of British illustrators such as Walter Crane and Randolph Caldecott, Denslow was the first American illustrator to design picture books for children as artistic units, with the covers, endpapers, illustrations, typefaces, and general layouts contributing to a carefully organized and decorative effect.

William Wallace Denslow Jr. (called "Wally" by his family and "Will" or "Billie" by his friends) was born on 5 May 1856 in Philadelphia, the son...