Howard Pyle was born in Wilmington, Delaware on March 5, 1853. His family settled the Brandywine Valley after arriving from England as Quaker immigrants in 1682. At the time of Pyle's birth, Wilmington was a small town beginning to grow into a city. The Pyle home was in the country just outside of town next to a rich garden filled with flowers, fruit trees, vines, a greenhouse and a summerhouse. Books and pictures filled the home and the fireplace in the library contributed to its warm and inviting atmosphere. These surroundings nurtured Pyle's young imagination. The images of his idyllic childhood in Wilmington would stay with Pyle all of his life. He would return to them again and again in his illustrations and writings such as in the descriptions of the gardens in The Garden Behind the Moon, The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes, and in some of the descriptive passages in his Arthurian books (Nesbitt 1966, 9).

According to Pyle, his mother brightened his childhood with "an illuminating joyfulness in beautiful things" (Agosta 1987, 4). She introduced him to the Grimm fairy tales, stories from the Arabian Nights, Slovenly Peter, A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales, Robinson Crusoe, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Ritson's collection of ballads about Robin Hood. He spent hours reading illustrated novels by Dickens, Thackeray, Bunyan, and Dafoe and enjoying the illustrations by Thomas Bewick, Felix Octavius Darley, and John Tenniel in Punch. His mother also exposed him to important British artists and illustrators of the 1860's including Arthur Boyd Houghton, Charles Keene, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and Edward Burne-Jones. Very early in life Pyle began associating pictures with texts. According to Henry Pitz, "the concept of the picture springing from literary ideas was ingrained in him from the start" (Pitz 1969, 40).

Pyle attended the Friends' School and later a school conducted by Thomas Clarkson Taylor. But, as Pyle himself later recalled, "he spent his time largely in scrawling drawings on his slate and in his books" (Pitz 1969, 42). Realizing their son's lack of interest in studying, the Pyle's gave up their idea of sending Howard to college and instead his mother encouraged him to study art. At sixteen he began three years of daily commutes to Philadelphia in order to study under the Belgian artist Van der Weilen. These classes would be the only systematic training in art that Pyle would receive and provided a solid foundation in the technique of drawing.

After three years of study, Pyle set up a studio at home in Wilmington and began helping his father in the leather business while trying to decide upon a career. During the next five years he continued to draw and experiment with writing in his spare time. He read widely and discovered the writer William Dean Howells from Their Wedding Journey and A Chance Acquaintance and attempted to emulate his writing style. At the end of the five years, in the spring of 1876, Pyle took a trip to Chincoteague Island off the coast of Virginia to observe the annual roundup of wild ponies. He took notes on everything he saw and made several sketches for a possible article.

Back in Wilmington he continued working on his sketches and notes from the trip. At the same time he completed a set of verses about a magic pill and submitted them along with illustrations to Scribner's Monthly (July 1876). He received his first letter of acceptance and a check. He then submitted a fairy tale for children to St. Nicholas (February 1877), the most important magazine for children of that time, and again received a check in the mail. His confidence raised, Pyle wrote the Chincoteague article and submitted it with eleven drawings to Scribner's Monthly (April 1877). This too was accepted. These successes prompted Pyle's father to stop by the Scribner office while in New York on business. The elder Pyle met with Roswell Smith, the editor, who enthusiastically suggested Mr. Pyle send his talented son to New York to write and illustrate for magazines.

Pyle left Wilmington for New York in October 1876. Work for Scribner's was not as forthcoming as expected and Pyle had to make connections with other publishers as well. Mary Mapes Dodge, editor of St. Nicholas, was "rapidly becoming famous as a primary influence in the improvement of children's literature in the United States" (Nesbitt 1966, 14). She encouraged Pyle to submit writings and drawings to the magazine. Pyle's first studio work in New York was several animal fables and illustrations for St. Nicholas magazine.

After nearly a year in New York, Mrs. Dodge sent Pyle to the engraving house so he could adjust his drawing style for better reproduction. He also enrolled in a sketching class at the Art Students' League to improve his drawing of the human figure. Pyle began having doubts about his ability in his chosen career and thought for a while that he should concentrate on being an author instead. But by early 1877 all such thoughts had vanished. He had met Charles Parsons, art director at Harper and Brothers, the largest publisher in the country. Parsons had "selected and trained a group of young illustrators, among them Edwin Austin Abbey, Arthur Burdett Frost, and Charles Stanley Reinhart, who were improving the art of illustration to a degree of excellence hitherto unknown in America" (Nesbitt 1966, 15). According to Agosta, "in many ways, Pyle's association with the Harpers marked the real start of his professional career" (Agosta 1987, 7).

Parsons encouraged Pyle to submit ideas and preliminary sketches to Harper's but the final products were redrawn by an experienced house illustrator before being engraved. Pyle studied and absorbed everything he saw at Harper's and in late 1877 asked Parsons to allow him to finish a sketch himself entitled "A Wreck in the Offing." Parsons agreed. Pyle worked on the sketch for over six weeks until he was literally down to his last nickel and was forced to submit the drawing. Pyle was aware that Parsons' decision could very well decide his future as an illustrator; "I think it was not until I stood in the awful presence of the art director himself that I realized how this might be the turning point of my life -" (Pitz 1969, 60). Parsons not only accepted the illustration but published it as a double-page spread in Harper's Weekly on March 9, 1878.

At twenty-five, Pyle was now in demand as an illustrator. He had as much work as he could handle and he continued to grow in the esteem of his peers. He developed friendships with many young artists of his day, especially Winslow Homer, Edwin Abbey, Charles Reinhart, and Arthur Frost. But by late 1879, his friends began to move away from New York. Pyle realized he had accomplished everything he had hoped in New York and his thoughts turned to his home in Wilmington. He returned to his studio in his parents' home with the assurance of Charles Parsons that Harper's would send him enough work to keep him fully occupied.

In the fall of 1894, at the age of forty-one, Pyle started his teaching career with a class in illustration at the Drexel Institute of Arts and Sciences in Philadelphia. He had become aware of the lack of adequate training for illustrators and deplored the "art school routine of his day..as being almost entirely an imitative exercise which seldom actively involved the imagination" (Pitz 1969, 94). Pyle's classes were extremely successful and in 1898, with the help of the Drexel Institute, he started a summer class at Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania in order to concentrate on a handful of talented students. After two summers with Drexel students at Chadd's Ford, Pyle resigned from Drexel in order to open his own art school in Wilmington.

The Howard Pyle School of Art started classes in 1900 with twelve students selected from hundreds of applicants from all over the country. Pyle wrote in a letter to the art editor at Harper's that he would not accept students "deficient in any of the following criteria: first of all, imagination; secondly, artistic ability; thirdly, color and drawing" (Agosta 1987, 18). Pyle resumed the summer school at Chadd's Ford in 1901 in order to provide his students the opportunity to paint in natural light. "His vstudents worked hard, but played too, many recalling these summer months as Edenic" (Agosta 1987, 18). There were no regular summer classes after 1903 but Pyle and his students frequently returned to Chadd's Ford to sketch, paint, and to play. Pyle stopped teaching formal classes in 1905 but continued to offer criticism privately to former students and established artists.

Pyle's students from Chadd's Ford and Wilmington include an impressive array of talented artists including Edward Austin Abbey, Maxfield Parrish, Newell Convers Wyeth, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Jessie Willcox Smith, Thornton Oakley, Violet Oakley, Margaret Hinchman, Harvey Dunn, Stanley Arthurs, Frank Schoonover, William J. Aylward, and Walter Everett. Pyle expressed his feelings about teaching in a letter to the President of Drexel, "I know of no better legacy a man can leave to the world than that he had aided others to labour at an art so beautiful as that to which I have devoted my life" (Nesbitt 1966, 24). Pyle's legacy is known as the Brandywine Tradition.

In 1905 Pyle became interested in mural painting which was popular at the turn of the century for decorating new public buildings. He began by painting seven panels of various sizes in his own home. His first mural commission, The Battle of Nashville for the governor's reception room in the Minnesota State Capitol building, was completed in 1906. The architect, Cass Gilbert, was so pleased with this mural that he asked Pyle to design an even larger mural for the new Essex County Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey. The Landing of Cartaret was completed in 1907. Pyle's most ambitious mural project was for the Hudson County Courthouse in Jersey City, New Jersey, and included five panels of historical subjects: Life in an Old Dutch Town, Hendryk Hudson and the Half-Moon, Peter Stuyvesant and the English Fleet, Dutch Soldier, and English Soldier. After its completion in 1910, Pyle decided his technique could benefit from a trip to Italy to study the great masters of mural design.

Pyle had always steadfastly avoided any thought of visiting Europe even though many of his illustrations were of European scenes. Although himself influenced by such artists as Durer, Bergkmair, Cramach and others of the German and Renaissance Italian schools (Agosta 1987, 14), Pyle held that "America had been too dependent upon European methods and must develop her own indigenous art" (Nesbitt 1966, 24). But Pyle's intense interest in mural painting overcame his previous prejudice and in November of 1910 he sailed for Italy.

Not in the best of health when he left home, Pyle was ill on most of the trip. He did not like Rome and was unhappy there. When again well enough to travel, he and his wife went to Florence. He wrote in a letter, "I like Florence very much...the old masters certainly were glorious painters and I take back all that I ever said against them...in color they are so remarkable that I do not see how any human being painted as they did" (Pitz 1969, 159) and "I kept thinking of my pupils and wishing that they could see these pictures" (Agosta 1987, 22). Pyle was finally able to admit that European art might have something to teach American artists and illustrators.

Pyle also visited Genoa and Siena but failing health sent him back to Florence. He died of Bright's disease, a serious infection of the kidneys, on November 9, 1911, almost a year after sailing from New York. According to Agosta, "His burial in foreign soil was an ironic coda to the life of a man celebrated for his enduring contributions to American children's literature, devoted to the creation of a characteristic American art, and recognized as the premier illustrator and teacher in what has come to be called 'the Golden Age of American Illustration'" (Agosta 1987, 23).

Agosta, Lucien L. Howard Pyle. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987.

Nesbitt, Elizabeth. Howard Pyle. London: The Bodley Head, 1966.

Pitz, Henry C. The Brandywine tradition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969.

Part IV Miscellaneous Items

The Century Magazine, 1893-1902

Collier's Weekly, 1898-1906

Harper's Bazaar, 1882-1891

Harper's Monthly Magazine, 1901-1912
Hillman: Shelved alphabetically.

Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1878-1900
Hillman: Shelved alphabetically.

Harper's Round Table, 1896-1897

Harper's Weekly, 1877-1907
Hillman-Spec Coll Shelved alphabetically

Harper's Young People, 1880-1894

Scribner's Magazine, 1887-1903
Hillman: Shelved alphabetically.

Scribner's Monthly, 1876-1878
Hillman: Shelved alphabetically.

St. Nicholas, 1877-1903
* ENR: Shelved alphabetically.

Murals by Howard Pyle

The Battle of Nashville. State Capitol, Minnesota, 1906.
The Landing of Carteret. Essex County Courthouse, Neward, New Jersey, 1907.
Hendryk Hudson and the Half-Moon, Peter Stuyvesant and the English Fleet, Life in an Old Dutch Town, Dutch Soldier, English Soldier. Hudson County Courthouse, Jersey City, New Jersey, 1910.

[NOTES: Part 4 - ILLUSTRATIONS TO INCLUDE ON ENR WEB PAGE The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire ENR: 398.22 P996m "The Merry Friar carrieth Robin across the Water" - opposite title page ""Stout Robin hath a narrow escape" - page 242 Otto of the Silver Hand - ENR: Shelved alphabetically "Poor Brother John came forward and took the boy's hand" - page 57 "The next moment they were hanging in mid-air" - page 135 Pepper and Salt - ENR: Shelved alphabetically No title, opposite title page Xeroxes of illustrations were handed in with the disk. Illustrations from The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson "The Lady of Shalott" http://rodent.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/images/pylels.htm "The Lady of Shalott Weaving" http://rodent.lib.rochester.edu/camelot.pylelsw.htm "Launcelot" http://rodent.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/images/pylelsla.htm]

Elzea, Rowland. Howard Pyle. Toronto-New York-London: A Peacock Press/Bantam Book, 1975.
Ji q741.092 P996

Harper, Joseph Henry. The house of Harper. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912.

Jordan, Alice M. Children's classics. Boston: The Horn Book, 1967.
PN 1009 A1J58 1967

Jordan, Alice M. From Rollo to Tom Sayer. Boston: The Horn Book, 1948.
Ji 809.89282 J 82F 1948b

Lawson, Robert. "Howard Pyle and his times." Illustrators of Children's Books: 1744-1945. ed. by Bertha E. Mahony,

Louise Payson Latimer, and Beulah Folmsbee. Boston: The Horn Book, 1970.
REF qNC965 M59

Lehmann-Haupt, Hellmut. The book in America: A history of the making and selling of books in the United States. New York: R.R. Bowker Co., 1951.
Z2473 LS22 1951

Morse, Willard S. and Gertrude Brinckle. Howard Pyle: A record of his illustrations and writings. Wilmington, Delaware: the Wilmington] Society of the Fine Arts, 1921. Reissued by Detroit: Singing Tree Press. Book Tower, 1969.
Ji 92 P996m

Pitz, Henry. Howard Pyle: Writer, illustrator, founder of the Brandywine school. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1975.
Ji q741.092 P692h

Nesbit, Elizabeth. Howard Pyle. New York: Henry Z. Walck Incorporated, 1966.