Betrayed by a wicked guardian, an English orphan finds himself kidnapped and set aboard a ship bound for the New World. Jack Ballister's dramatic adventures unfold in the American South of 1719, where the young hero is sold into slavery on a Virginia tobacco plantation. There he encounters a sinister plot, hatched by a savage crew of pirates under the command of none other than Captain Edward Teach, the infamous Blackbeard. The New York Times greeted this rousing tale's publication with praise, calling it "a rattling good book . . . as full of adventure as the most exacting reader of romance could wish, and withal as healthy and clean, although it is founded on kidnapping and piracy." Author Howard Pyle wrote many such stories of derring-do, set in a variety of historical eras, and all richly embellished with period details. Pyle, best known as an artist, changed the way the world looked at illustration with a distinctive pen-and-ink style that recalls the medieval tradition of wood-engraved images. This excellent edition of Pyle's memorable story features all of his original illustrations.
Author
Howard Pyle was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. During 1894 he began teaching illustration at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry (now Drexel University), and after 1900 he founded his own school of art and illustration named the Howard Pyle School of Illustration Art. The term Brandywine School was later applied to the illustration artists and Wyeth family artists of the Brandywine region by Pitz. Some of his more famous students were N. C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, Elenore Abbott, Ethel Franklin Betts, Anna Whelan Betts, Harvey Dunn, Clyde O. DeLand, Philip R. Goodwin, Violet Oakley, Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle, Olive Rush, Allen Tupper True, and Jessie Willcox Smith. His 1883 classic publication The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood remains in print, and his other books, frequently with medieval European settings, include a four-volume set on King Arthur. He is also well known for his illustrations of pirates, and is credited with creating the now stereotypical modern image of pirate dress. He published an original novel, Otto of the Silver Hand, in 1888. He also illustrated historical and adventure stories for periodicals such as Harper's Weekly and St. Nicholas Magazine. His novel Men of Iron was made into a movie in 1954, The Black Shield of Falworth. Pyle travelled to Florence, Italy to study mural painting during 1910, and died there in 1911 from a kidney infection (Bright's Disease). His sister Katharine Pyle was also a writer and illustrator. Their mother was the children's author and translator M.C. Pyle.
