Comic History of Greece from the Earliest Times to the Death of Alexander the Great by Charles M. Snyder

Illustrated by John Sloan, W. M. Goodes, F. McKernan, E. Shinn, H. Blue, F. C. Schell, and Bob Addams. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company 1897.

I think i've found a little treasure in this book! Loaded w/ satire, i think that it is more about American and [to a lesser extent] European politics of the time than about Greek history. The beautiful illustrations by Sloan utilize all the techniques he was studying from Japanese ukiyo-e prints at the time. This was the beginning of what was called the 'Art Poster', often seen as the birth of art nouveau in America. I'll put some of the other illustrations in another post. The ones by W. M. Goodes and Bob Addams look so much like R. Crumb, but this book is from 1897! I swear some of the characters are exactly like Crumb characters.

This period of time was a really fertile one for American illustration - gave birth to Maxfield Parrish [the antithesis of John Sloan, in many ways], Pyle, N. C. Wyeth, etc. Many of them were from Philadelphia as well. Aspiring artists of the day were usually from wealthy families, and often studied abroad in Europe, but Sloan never did any of that because his family was poor [or became poor]. Sloan became an active member of the communist party, incurring the wrath of many which could explain why very little is written about this book. I found mention of it in many places, but it seems to be pretty rare. I'd love to get more info about it if anyone out there knows...

Some of the comical illustrations in this book look like very early political cartoons.