sloth unleashed

beautifuldavinci:

Howard Pyle (1853 – 1911)  American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people.

A native of Wilmington, Delaware, he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.

During 1894 he began teaching illustration at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry (now Drexel University), and after 1900 he founded his own school of art and illustration named the Howard Pyle School of Illustration Art.

Indeed, none of the tales in the Robin Hood book were Pyle’s own invention, with some dating back to the late Middle Ages. Rather, his achievement was in linking them to form a unified, illustrated story. “The Adventure with the Curtal Friar”, for example, ceased to be a stand-alone tale, but was made part of the book’s overall narrative by Pyle in order to reintroduce Friar Tuck, because a co-operative priest was needed for the wedding of outlaw Allan a Dale (Pyle’s spelling of the original Alan-a-Dale) to his sweetheart Ellen.

A number of pirate legends by Pyle, including some of his illustrations, were collected as Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates, published in 1921, ten years after his death.

(via oldpainting)