The Lost Sketchbooks: A Young Artist in The Great War - Softcover

Edward Shenton returned to art school at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and went on to have a fifty-year-long career as a professional artist during which he did covers for first editions of Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald. He was one of the major book and magazine illustrators of the 1930 s and 1940 s. His rare sketches were done with exceptional skill and an immediacy seldom seen in wartime artwork. One hundred and fifty of his drawings are included in The Lost Sketchbooks.

I finally found a moment to sit down with your book and a glass of beer yesterday evening. I was soon totally engrossed and before I knew it the bottle was empty and an hour had sped by.... Congratulations it s really a remarkable piece of research and a highly readable reconstruction of Edward Shenton s wartime career. The detailed notes on each sketch at the end obviously involved a huge amount of sleuthing. You ve done a real service in pulling such a memorable collection of sketches together and no question it will arouse a lot of interest among WWI historians. --Evan Hadingham, Senior Producer, NOVA

This book is a treasure from start to finish. Right now I have started over again reading the prose carefully, and letting the details of Shenton's boyhood and army years sink in. You have done a superb job marshaling the necessary biographical details to situate Shenton and personalize the drawings. How lucky to have come across that military memoir which provides so valuable a temporal and geographical frame to your layout. The artist comes across as the dreamy charming young boy who continues with that outlook as you can see from the poetry. He must have remained delightful throughout his life. I don't know when I have had an account of someone's life that made me feel so good about the human race. --Charles Rowan Beye Distinguished Professor of Classics Emeritus City University of New York

I am absolutely delighted with the book, with its establishment of the context for Edward Shenton s early influences as an artist, as well as his portrayal of the lives of the Doughboys. A kind of visual time capsule, The Lost Sketchbooks: A Young Artist in the Great War, by Rex Passion provides and extraordinary and previously unknown window into the experiences of an American Doughboy in the First World War. For nearly 90 years, the original wartime drawings and watercolors of artist and illustrator Edward Shenton, who went to France as a soldier in the 28th Infantry Division in 1918, had been locked away; recently rediscovered, they form the basis of this rich portrait of American participation in The War to End All Wars. Through a fortunate connection with Ed Shenton s son, Ned, author Rex Passion has been able bring to the light of publication, after more than 90 years, the remarkable drawings and paintings created by this soldier-artist during World War I. Carefully researching the history and of the 103rd Engineers, Passion was pieced together Ed Shenton s Doughboy journey, writing a compelling narrative context for the selected artwork. The Lost Sketchbooks: A Young Artist in the Great War is a genuine gift to Americans of today as they strive to connect with and understand the meaning and impact of America s experience in World War I. --Paul Cora, The Western Front Association