Pyle, Howard (1853–1911), well‐known American illustrator and author. Pyle lived in Delaware's Brandywine Valley near Wilmington for most of his life except for a brief apprenticeship in New York City and the ill‐fated European journey that ended with his death. Pyle's first successful book was The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (1883), a beautifully designed, illustrated and retold edition of the classic tales. Published simultaneously in Britain and America, the book's design won widespread critical accolades—even from William Morris, dean of the beautiful book. Pyle's Arthuriad, published 1903–10, demonstrates his continuing fascination with English tales of chivalry. The stylized medievalesque diction in which Pyle chose to relate these tales has been variously admired and criticized, but it does lend a tone of high seriousness to his rendition. In both the Robin Hood and Arthurian cycles, Pyle altered the stories in order to enhance his heroes' virtues, particularly emphasizing chastity and leadership in keeping with contemporary bourgeois norms. The potential irony that medieval English stories should be offered to American youth is partially explained by Pyle's support of ‘The Knights of King Arthur’, an early precursor to the Boy Scout movement, and his friendship with President Theodore Roosevelt. Valuing the republican, civilizing (or colonizing) themes of the old tales, Pyle emphasized social order and the rule of law. In addition to revising English legends, Pyle published three collections of folk tales: Pepper & Salt (1886), The Wonder Clock (1888), and Twilight Land (1895). Rendered in the avuncular style of the Brothers Grimm and Joseph Jacobs, the collections are more accessible than the legendary exploits of Robin Hood and King Arthur. They emphasize the democratizing aspects of the folk tradition, but also justify the unequal distribution of wealth by appeals to fate and a social‐Darwinist view of individual value. Pyle's illustrations evolve from rather static Morris‐influenced woodcut designs in the first collection to impressionistic pen‐and‐ink drawings in the last. In Twilight Land and A Modern Aladdin (1892), Pyle moves away from English and Germanic influences and draws on 18th‐century French orientalism for his inspiration, particularly The Arabian Nights. In all these collections, Pyle recombines old folk motifs into new stories supporting the American Dream. Finally, Pyle wrote literary fairy tales, most notably The Garden behind the Moon (1895), a Swedenborg‐influenced fantasy in part inspired by the untimely death of his oldest son. An extended parable about death and imagination indebted to the fantasies of George MacDonald, The Garden behind the Moon is unusual in that it begins with a primary, everyday world, moves to a magical faerie plane, and then demonstrates the mutual interpenetration of the two worlds by unexpectedly resolving the plot in the primary world. Pyle exerted further influence through teaching, notably of Maxfield Parrish and N. C. Wyeth.
Bibliography
- Agosta, Lucien L., Howard Pyle (1987).
- Howard Pyle Commemorative Issue, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 8 (summer 1983).
- Pitz, Henry C., Howard Pyle: Writer, Illustrator, Founder of the Brandywine School (1965).
— Naomi J. Wood
