The art of book illustration seems to have evaporated up into the ullage.  It lives on, of course, in the lively fields of children’s books and graphic novels.  But few novelists nowadays turn over a few pages to an artist to draw pictures of their stories.

Which provides an excuse to post here one of the wonderful creations of Frank C. Papé.  Little is known about him: you too can type his name into the Google box and trawl through the meager findings.  He illustrated many of the books of Anatole France and James Branch Cabell, whose bawdy, irreverent satires were well served by his penchant for opulent, cartoony grotesques.

I’ve selected one of his lithos for France’s At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque.  It depicts the notion that Adam and Eve sinned in copulating with one another, rather than with the Sylphs, Salamanders, and other “Genii of the air.”  It was published by Dodd, Mead, and Co. in 1923.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)