Born Eleanor Hodgman in Littleton, New Hampshire on December 19, 1868, this young woman trained to be a singer at the New England Conservatory of Music, but turned to writing shortly after she was married to John Lyman Porter in 1892. The couple moved to Massachusetts. Mrs. Porter wrote for both children and adults, but […]
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Pyle, Howard
“Do you know an American magazine called Harper’s Monthly? There are things in it which strike me dumb with admiration, including sketches of a Quaker town in the olden days by Howard Pyle.” Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to his brother Theo (quoted in N.C. Wyeth: a Biography) Born on March 5, 1853 in […]
Potter, Beatrix
Beatrix Potter was born on July 28, 1866 in South Kensington, London. She and her brother Bertram were raised, educated, and fed by a governess in an attic nursery. Beatrix’s grandmother lobbied for her to begin drawing lessons when she was twelve years old. Her art teacher, Miss Hammond, tweaked her observation skills with nature […]
Politi, Leo
Leo Politi was born on Nov. 21st, 1908, in Fresno, California, but moved to his mother’s native village near Milan, Italy at the age of seven. Constantly drawing, he went to art school and worked as a designer and illustrator before returning to the U.S. He settled on Los Angeles’ quaint Mexican Olvera Street, where […]
Poe, Edgar Allan
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809. When he was just three, his actor parents died, leaving Poe to be raised by the Allan family in Virginia. A challenging youth may have contributed to his active imagination, for Poe took prose where it had never gone before. He died on October 7, 1849. […]
Petersham, Miska
Author and illustrator Miska Petersham was born on September 20, 1888. Miska graduated from the Budapest Academy of Art in Hungary and immigrated to the United States in 1912. Miska worked as a commercial artist until marrying Maud Fuller and beginning a career in children’s books. They went on to become a Caldecott Medal-winning team. […]
Petersham, Maud
Maud Fuller Petersham was born on August 5, 1889 in Kingston, New York and grew up to be part of a Caldecott Medal-winning husband-and-wife team. She was the daughter of a Baptist minister, graduated from Vassar, and spent a year at art school in New York where she met Miska, her lifelong collaborator. Working in […]
Perrault, Charles
If you are familiar with the fairy tales of Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, or Tom Thumb then you have probably read Charles Perrault (born January 12, 1628), for his versions of these tales have become classics. He began his writing career as an academic, publishing Parallels between the Ancients and the Moderns, 1688-1697. In […]
Peet, Bill
Bill Peet was born in Grandview, Indiana on January 29, 1915 and spent several of his boyhood years on his grandfather’s farm. He taught himself to sketch as a young boy when some photographs he took of zoo animals failed to develop. Peet worked briefly for a greeting card company before being hired by Disney […]
Parrish, Anne
Anne Parrish, born on November 12th, 1888, came from good artistic stock. Her mother was Anne Lodge Parrish, with whom this author and illustrator is often confused; her father, artist Thomas C. Parrish. But art did not come easily to her and she soon turned to writing, publishing her first novel in […]