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Albert F Blaisdell Biography & Facts

Frank Thayer Merrill (December 14, 1848 – October 12, 1936) was an American artist and illustrator. He is best known for his drawings for the first illustrated edition of Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women, published in 1880. Over a five-decade career, he illustrated a wide variety of works for adults and children. Early life and education Frank Thayer Merrill was born on December 14, 1848, to George William Merrill (1824–1879) and Sarah Rose Merrill (née Alden, 1822–1895) in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Both parents were natives of Westbrook, Maine. His father was descended from Nathaniel Merrill, who emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1635. His mother was a direct descendant of John Alden, of the Mayflower crew. He attended local public schools, graduating from either Roxbury High School or Boston Latin School — sources disagree. (The 1865 state census lists the 16-year-old Merrill's occupation as "clerk" rather than "student".) His mother "greatly encouraged Merrill's artistic development and from her much of his talent is said to have come". Merrill participated in the free drawing program at the Lowell Institute from 1864 to 1875, and entered the school of drawing and painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1875. Career In 1870, Merrill established a studio in Roxbury where he dedicated himself to a career as an illustrator as well as painting in watercolor and oil. He traveled to Europe in 1884, painting and sketching in France, Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands and England. He drew on his observations of Parisian life along the Seine river to write a story titled Through the Heart of Paris. It appeared in the January 1886 issue of the children's magazine Wide Awake and was included in a collection of Wide Awake travel articles, Sights Worth Seeing by Those Who Saw Them, also published in 1886. Collaboration with Louisa May Alcott Merrill's first major commission was to illustrate a new edition of Little Women. Originally released in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, a single-volume revised edition was published in 1880 to capitalize on the book's popularity and to deter copyright violators. Merrill created over two hundred pen-and-ink drawings for the new edition. In 2002, the Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts, mounted an exhibition of sixty-five of Merrill's original drawings for Little Women, some with annotations by the author giving both praise and editorial direction. Alcott was pleased with the final drawings, writing to her publisher: The drawings are all capital, and we had great fun over them down here this rainy day.... Mr. Merrill certainly deserves a good penny for his work. Such a fertile fancy and quick hand as his should be well paid, and I shall not begrudge him his well-earned compensation, nor the praise I am sure these illustrations will earn. Merrill also illustrated some of Alcott's books re-issued after her death, including: An Old-Fashioned Girl (1898 Roberts Brothers edition) and Little Men (1904 Little, Brown & Co. edition). Mark Twain and The Prince and the Pauper Shortly after Little Women was published, Merrill was asked to supply illustrations for the first edition of The Prince and the Pauper (1881) by Mark Twain. He shared credit with John J. Harley and Ludvig Sandöe Ipsen for the 192 illustrations. Twain commented favorably on Merrill's drawings in letters to his publisher: As to the pictures, they clear surpass my highest expectations. They are as dainty and rich as etching. Other work Over the course of his career, Merrill created thousands of illustrations for a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction for children and adults. Some of his earliest work appears in a history titled Pioneers in the Settlement of America published in 1877. He went on to illustrate a number of other histories, primarily for children, sharing his deep interest in American history, particularly the colonial and revolutionary eras. These include: Legends of ye Province House (1890) by Nathaniel Hawthorne The American History Story Book (1911) and Heroic Deeds of American Sailors (1917) by Albert F. Blaisdell and Francis K. Ball In the Days of Thomas Jefferson (1900) by Hezekiah Butterworth The Knitting of the Souls: A Tale of 17th Century Boston (1904) by Maude Clark Gay Prisoners of the Pirates: A Tale of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1913) by Ruel Perley Smith Many of the works Merrill contributed to were reissues of American and English classics: Rip van Winkle (1888) and Tales of a Traveller (1897) by Washington Irving The Courtship of Miles Standish (1883) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Vanity Fair (1893) and The Mahogany Tree (1887) by William Makepeace Thackeray The Man without a Country (1900) by Edward Everett Hale Lorna Doone (1892) by R. D. Blackmore Adam Bede (1893) by George Eliot The Count of Monte Cristo (1915) and a number of other romances by Alexandre Dumas. He also supplied illustrations for contemporary, or popular, fiction: The Mysteries of Paris (1903) by Eugene Sue Love Me Little, Love Me Long (1910) by Charles Reade Hope Loring (1902) by Lillian Bell Omar, the Tentmaker (1922) by Nathan Haskell Dole The Yellow God, an Idol of Africa (1908) by H. Rider Haggard Merrill specialized in children's books, or what might be called Young Adult fiction. Many were entries in multi-book series for which he provided illustrations for one or more volumes. Lynx-hunting (The Camping-Out series, vol IV) (1872) by Charles Asbury Stephens Captain January (1892) and Star Bright (1927) by Laura E. Richards A Boy's Adventure, or, The Strange Adventures of Ben Baker (1898) by Horatio Alger Jr. An Annapolis Plebe (1907) by Edward L. Beach Sr., the first in a series about naval life. The Six Little Pennypackers (1911) by Sophie Swett Mary Ware in Texas (1919) by Annie Fellowes Johnston The Young Wireless Operator with the Oyster Fleet (1922) by Lewis E. Theiss. Merrill illustrated nine of ten entries in the Wireless Patrol series. Lonely O'Malley (1924) by Arthur Stringer Merrylips (1925) by Beulah Marie Dix Merrill displayed considerable skill as a calligrapher. His editions of two Christmas poems, Thackeray's The Mahogany Tree and A Christmas Carroll, written in 1622 by George Wither, are entirely rendered with full-page drawings, decorative elements and hand-lettered text. Exhibitions Merrill exhibited in a number of art galleries, including the Salmagundi Club in New York City. A Boston newspaper reviewed an 1885 exhibition of watercolors at Chase's Art Gallery. (The Bromley Arms, which became the Donnithorne Arms in George Eliot's novel Adam Bede, was painted by Merrill when he was in England.) The first twelve have a double interest, being sketches from the scene of "Adam Bede", and to the readers of this immortal book they will prove very interesting. "The Bromley Arms" is very delicate in handling, and the color is quiet and cool; the grays are soft but rather ordinary; there is a lack of .... Discover the Albert F Blaisdell popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Albert F Blaisdell books.