A few days ago, I was reading the first issue of Sea Stories and happened to glance through some of the covers of that magazine. The December 1925 issue, unattributed in the FictionMags Index, caught my eye.
Ah! A signature on the bottom left of that cover. I squinted at it and tried to see if I could recognize it. The second part was clearly Maxwell, but the first part wasn’t so clear. Lawn? Jawn? John? Maybe. I searched the FictionMags Index using https://pulpflakes.com/fmisearch and ended up finding John Alan Maxwell. I quickly glanced through his pulp work. Not a lot, at least not indexed. But what there was was good.
It was clear that this was the work of an accomplished artist, and so I went off on one of my tangents, trying to find out more about John Alan Maxwell. I found he’d illustrated many books, magazines, advertisements and was famous for his historical illustrations, rivaling N. C. Wyeth in illustrating works of authors like Rafael Sabatini,
I also ended up finding a reference to a movie about him, made by his great-nephew, Douglas Stuart MacDaniel.
In 2009, Douglas had also curated an exhibition titled ‘John Alan Maxwell: Illustrator of Romance’. It featured key illustrations that Maxwell produced for such authors as John Steinbeck, Pearl S. Buck, Christopher Morley, Edna Ferber, Hervey Allen, Booth Tarkington and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
An exhibition meant that there might have been a catalog, and a catalog probably had an essay. I thought I might be able to find Douglas and ask him for his essay to publish on this site. Utter cheek, I know.
Still, nothing happens if you don’t give it a try. I contacted him via social media and was amazed as he put together an article in minutes, giving me permission to republish it here. Sometimes the way the universe works is amazing.
There’s a number of pictures there, but some areas of his work are not covered, understandably. Maxwell’s career was long and his oeuvre huge, ranging from magazine covers and interior illustrations to books and advertisements. I put together a few samples of his work in the gallery below. Enjoy.
That article is available on Douglas’ site, Multiverse Thinking. Here you go:
Many thanks to Douglas for his work.
Sai, I just want to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Cheers,
Doug
That thanks really belongs to you, Doug, for keeping Mr. Maxwell’s memory alive as it should be. I love his work.