Drawing on the Past #7: STANLEY L WOOD

Work: Dr. Nikola by Guy Boothby
Publisher: Ward Lock, 1902 - a later edition
Artist: Stanley L. Wood (1867 - 1928)

To me Stanley Wood will always be remembered for the iconic portrait of Dr. Nikola. I know you've seen it. It's what I use as my avatar over there to the right in the "About Me" section on this blog.  What surprised me was all the other work he is better known for.

Born in Monmouthshire in 1867 Wood traveled with his father a cement manufacturer to America in 1878. The family settled on a ranch in the Ute Indians territory of what would soon become Kansas. There is an amusing anecdote about how Wood's mother tried to ward off the Ute Indians when he husband died.  You can read it here. Soon after her husband's death, Charlotte Wood took her children back to England.  It was in London that Stanley became an illustrator for newspapers and magazines.

In 1888 he was sent to South Dakota by The Illustrated London News where he was better able to study the geography to give his work more authenticity.  Three examples of his western art can be found here, here, and here. From an art gallery website I learned this about Wood:

Book dealer Jefferson Chenoweth Dykes ...wrote in Fifty Great Western Illustrators that “no better horse artist ever lived than Stanley L. Wood - there was more action in a Stanley Wood illustration than in the story itself".

Later in his career Wood would also become well known for his military illustrations.  There are several websites devoted to displaying his work in this genre.  You can visit one of the best ones here.

Below are some excellent examples of Wood's work taken form Dr. Nikola (originally published in 1896), the second novel about one of the first master criminals in all of fiction. As always, be sure to click on each picture in the tables to enlarge for full appreciation.

Old House of Fear - Russell Kirk

On the dedication page Kirk says that this "Gothick tale [is] in unblushing line of direct descent from The Castle of Otranto." Well. Authors are allowed their hyperbolic dedications, aren't they? The novel owes more to Edgar Wallace, Sax Rohmer, and even Guy Boothby but the only thing "in direct descent" from Walpole's masterful Gothic thriller is the creepy castle of the title. Nothing else.

The story starts off very much like a Gothic and there is a lot of legend and lore filling the pages, but after a rather protracted exposition (in which our hero attempts to get to the remote and unfriendly island of Carnglass at least four times) the hero does indeed arrive only to discover that the island has been taken over by a gang of thugs and criminals under the leadership of Dr. Edmund Jackman. The novel ceases to be a Gothic at this point and transforms into an adventure/crime novel.

Jackman is of the sinister master criminal type "in direct descent" from Dr. Nikola and the oddball occultists in Sax Rohmer's supernatural novels. Although all the gunplay and violence seemed to me very much like it was "in direct descent" from Edgar Wallace or Dennis Wheatley. Hugh Logan is our hero; Mary MacAskival, the heroine; and Dr. Jackman, the truly evil villain. It's all melodrama and heavy handed stylized prose. There is the usual business of who will inherit the castle; our poor hero trying to figure out who is telling the truth and with whom he should ally himself; death traps; narrow escapes; and a crazed bloody shoot out in the finale with the MacAskivals coming to rescue our hero and heroine. Dr. Jackman gets a fitting violent death of which I'll say no more.

It's entertaining and often gripping, but in the end all very familiar. Even the supernatural elements are rationalized. I was disappointed by that since at one point they seemed very other worldly. Not at all in line with Walpole, Radcliffe or any other genuine Gothic writer.