Howard Pyle: Sindbad on Burrator, 1902

The illustrations for this story by "Q," A.T. Quiller-Couch, which appeared in Scribner's Monthly Magazine for August 1902, are not milestones in Pyle's career so much as stepping stones. He and his wife had visited the island of Jamaica in 1889 where one can assume that he was dazzled by the intense light and dark shadows and the lush tropical landscape.

Click on image to enlarge. The quality of this print reproduction leaves much to be desired.

This chase scene on a tropical beach is the best of the lot, probably because Pyle had compiled some watercolor sketches and notes while on the Jamaica trip.

This was quite startling for the time, I believe, and probably influenced generations of magazine illustrators since it was first published. An enlarged section appears below.

Henry Pitz described Pyle's predicament his The Brandywine Tradition, first published in 1968:

"[Pyle] was usually happiest when he was providing pictures for his own texts. His contract with Harper, calling for three pictures a month, was his major source of income and gave him the necessary sense of financial security, but it had its treadmill aspects. There were times when he would have liked to have escaped its relentless demands. . . ."

This story is probably a case in point. The writer owes much to the style of Robert Louis Stevenson in a heavy-handed way, and one can imagine Pyle's impatience with the vivid text. In this illustration it seems that Pyle might have used the tropical plant to cover a foot he wasn't happy with and didn't bother to illustrate the description (which follows) of the Indian's face which he hid completely in deep black shadow.

"The man – a yellow-faced fellow but young in figure – muttered something in a gibberish new to me, and made as if excusing himself. It gave me an ugly start to see that his eyes were yellow too, with long slits for pupils; but I saw too that he was afraid of me, and being in a towering rage myself, I out with my kris.

" ' Now look here,’ I said; 'I don’t understand what you say, but maybe you understand this. Walk. And if I catch you here again, you’ll need someone to sew you up. . . .' "

Next: Howard Pyle's illustrations for The True Captain Kidd.