EXTRACTS: Pirates! Illustrators Special Edition © 2020 The Book Palace (128 PAGES in Full edition)

74 is a larger-than-life depiction of a fantasy. What girl wouldn’t like to fall under his spell and be swept away? Wouldn’t boys want to be part of his crew and sail the seven seas with him looking for adventures and fortune? It wasn’t any wonder that pirates were the dreams and fantasies of children for many centuries. Even to this day, pirates are part of a child’s fantasy dream, whether from watching them on film or playing their video games. And we owe all this to one person in particular who put pirates, as a pictur‐ esque (and picaresque) fantasy hero, to the forefront: Howard Pyle. Born on March 5, 1853, in Wilmington, Delaware (on the Brandywine Valley), Pyle was the eldest of four children from a Quaker family. His father, William Pyle, was owner of a leather business, and his mother, Mary Churchman FACING PAGE AND BELOW (detail): The Flying Dutchman , oil on canvas, 1900. This image appeared in Collier’s Weekly , December 1900. Another emblematic image by Pyle with fantasy overtones. ABOVE: Marooned , oil on canvas, 1909. Strangely enough, this painting remained unpublished during Pyle’s lifetime.