Frank C. Papé

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Frank Cheyne Papé, who generally signed himself Frank C. Papé (b. Camberwell, July 4th 1878 - d. 1972) was an English artist and book illustrator.

Papé's earliest illustrations are found in books for children from around 1908, including The Odyssey and The Pilgrim's Progress.

He obtained notice with the illustrations he produced in the 1920s for a number of the books of James Branch Cabell from The Biography of Manuel issued by the publishing house The Bodley Head, including Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice (1921, originally in a limited edition), The High Place, Ssomething about Eve and The Cream of the Jest. These illustrations often wittily paralleled the double entendres in Cabell's writing. In the preface to the edition of his book Figures of Earth, issued with Papé's illustrations in 1925, Cabell included a preface praising the fitness of Papé's style for these works.

The success of these editions led to the Bodley Head commissioning illustrations by Papé for books of Anatole France, including Penguin Island, and for the works of Rabelais. He also designed book covers for other authors, including Rafael Sabatini.

Papé was also sought after as a designer of bookplates, including that of the author Dennis Wheatley.

During the 1930s Papé's career faltered and little book work of his is recorded after this period, although he apparently supplied illustrations to a Chicago children's magazine in the 1940s.

A number of Papé's original drawings, together with some of his correspondence, is preserved at Stanford University.^[1]