American children’s novelist and illustrator Howard Pyle (March 5, 1853 – November 9, 1911) is credited with transmitting the old ballads and tales of Robin Hood and His Merry Men, the legends of King Arthur, and the stories of 18th century pirates to a younger generation of readers through novel adaptations he wrote and illustrated. (I can attest that his books are incredibly popular with collectors, especially editions with cover work done by Maxfield Parrish.) Some commentators have pointed out that modern stereotypes of how pirates dressed—i.e. Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow—are based largely on Pyle’s illustrations in History of Pyrates and would, in reality, have been highly impractical for real sailors.

Today’s Random Illustrations of the Day come from his 1883 book  Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire, which is elaborately decorated in an early modern-aping style, and written in a style that’s meant to imitate the ballads that Pyle drew upon.

You can read the book for free courtesy of Archive.org here.

Note: These images are in the public domain. For more information, see A Primer on Image Rights on OBA.

Illustrations

Other Ornamentation