Some artists leave us too young. But they leave behind a wonderful collection of work and a wistful sense of what could have been.
One such artist is Virginia Frances Sterrett (1900-1931). This is her story...
Virginia Frances Sterrett was born in Chicago in 1900. From an early age she preferred to draw rather than play with other children.
After Sterrett's father died she began to study at the Art Institute of Chicago. Sadly she left in 1916 after her mother became ill.
At 17 Sterrett was responsible for supporting her whole family, working in art advertising agencies around Chicago to earn her living. Two years later she was diagnosed with tuberculosis.
Sterrett received her first commission at the age of 19 to illustrate Old French Fairy Tales for Penn Publishing, earning $500 for eight watercolors and 16 ink drawings.
In 1920 Penn Publishing asked Sterrett to illustrate Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. After completing the work her family moved to Pasadena, hoping the climate would aid her health.
As Sterrett's tuberculosis grew worse she found she could only draw for a short period each day. In 1925 she started what would be her final completed work - her own interpretation of Arabian Nights.
Arabian Nights took Virginia Frances Sterrett three years to complete, working for a couple of hours each day. It was finally published by Penn in 1928.
In 1930, Sterrett started her last commission - Myths and Legends. Sadly it was never completed.
Virginia Frances Sterrett died of tuberculosis on 8 June 1931, at the age of 30.
The St Louis Post-Dispatch said of Sterrett's work: "Her achievement was beauty, a delicate, fantastic beauty, created with brush and pencil... she made pictures of haunting loveliness."
Virginia Frances Sterrett's first book - Old French Fairy Tales - is available free online. Do take a look at her wonderful work if you can: publicdomainreview.org/collections/ol……
More stories another time...
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What are the pulp archetypes? Pulp novels are usually written quickly and rely on a formula, but do they use different archetypal characters to other fiction?
Let's take a look at a few...
The Outlaw is a classic pulp archetype: from Dick Turpin onwards lawbreakers have been a staple of the genre. Crime never pays, but it's exciting and trangressive!
Some pulp outlaws however are principled...
As Bob Dylan sang "to live outside the law you must be honest." Michel Gourdon's 1915 hero Dr Christopher Syn is a good example. A clergyman turned pirate and smuggler, he starts as a revenger but becomes the moral magistrate of the smuggling gangs of Romney Marsh.
Given the current heatwave, I feel obliged to ask my favourite question: is it time to bring back the leisure suit?
Let's find out...
Now we all know what a man's lounge suit is, but if we're honest it can be a bit... stuffy. Formal. Businesslike. Not what you'd wear 'in da club' as the young folks say.
So for many years tailors have been experimenting with less formal, but still upmarket gents attire. The sort of garb you could wear for both a high level business meeting AND for listening to the Moody Blues in an espresso bar. Something versatile.
Today in pulp I look back at the publishing phenomenon of gamebooks: novels in which YOU are the hero!
A pencil and dice may be required for this thread...
Gamebooks are a simple but addictive concept: you control the narrative. At the end of each section of the story you are offered a choice of outcomes, and based on that you turn to the page indicated to see what happens next.
Gamebook plots are in fact complicated decision tree maps: one or more branches end in success, but many more end in failure! It's down to you to decide which path to tread.