The Lost Sketchbooks: A Young Artist in The Great War
by: Passion, Rex

Softcover. Cambridge, Komatik Press, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, oblong format. In 1917, while still in art school, Edward Shenton joined Company B, 103rd Engineers of the Pennsylvania National Guard. He stocked up on art materials, including many canvas-bound sketchbooks and a watercolor set, and went off to train and fight. Much of the war he witnessed made their way into his sketchbooks. When Ed returned home, no one wanted to hear about the war, much less see images of the horrors of battle. He went back to art school and his sketches were put away and forgotten. He had a brilliant career as an illustrator. His drawings graced the cover of Scribner's Magazine for ten years and embellished books by, among others, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolf.Edward Shenton had a long career as an outstanding illustrator, author, and teacher and, after a very full life, died at the age of eighty-two. Nine decades after they were put away, his son came across Ed's sketchbooks and he and I decided that they, along with his father's wartime story, had to be shared with the world.