Paul+Bransom

Determined to become a serious artist, Paul Bransom (born 1885) left school at fourteen and began to work as a patent draftsman in his native Washington, D.C. By eighteen he had headed for New York and a more creative career, specializing in the depiction of wild-life. He contributed to a whimsical newspaper comic strip called 'The News from Bugville' but spent all his free time avidly sketching at the city's two major zoos. Through Dr William Hornaday he gained the rare privilege of a studio situated right in the New York Zoological Park. His first real opportunity came with four animal-study covers for the Saturday Evening Post, followed shortly by his initial book commission for Jack London's bestseller, The Call of the Wild (1912). The following year he illustrated Kenneth Grahame's classic, The Wind in the Willows, and was later associated with several works by Charles G. D. Roberts. For many years Bransom spent the summer in the Adirondack Mountains, drawing animals in their natural habitat. In 1948 he espoused the life of the small rancher in Wyoming, painting the scenery and fauna of the American West.

The frog took a sudden plunge to the bottom.
An Argosy of Fables FREDERICK SAKS CO 1921