Howard Pyle

Howard Pyle (1853–1911) was an American illustrator, writer and teacher who joined historical adventure to images designed as part of the storytelling. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood gathers older ballad material into a lively sequence of contests, disguises and fellowship, with Pyle's drawings defining the atmosphere of Sherwood. Men of Iron follows a young man's education in chivalry and tests personal honour against inherited power. Otto of the Silver Hand places childhood, violence and mercy inside a medieval feud, while Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates helped establish the visual vocabulary through which later readers imagined seafaring outlaws. His versions of Arthurian legend apply the same combination of archaic flavour, clear action and decorative illustration. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood shows Pyle's text-image method at its most inviting; Men of Iron offers a sterner historical coming-of-age story.