Dazzling Erin

Like many artists from the pulp era, there isn’t much biographical information to be found about Albert Fisher. I did several searches online for him and I did come across a painter named Albert Fisher. That Fisher, though, was born in 1940 and since Albert Fisher’s pulp covers were all published in the 40s and the 50s, it’s safe to say that they are two different artists.

We know of Albert Fisher’s work because he was one of the few pulp artists to sign his work. Almost all of his work that I’ve seen was done for true crime magazines like Inside Detective and Front Page Detective. As was typical of the era, all of the covers below feature women who are either in trouble or who are about to make trouble. My favorite is “the woman who cheated at love,” who appears to be preparing to hide a time bomb underneath a bed.

1906 Illustration by Edward Dalton Stevens

This is a sad story.

Edward Dalton Stevens was born in 1878 in Virginia, the son of a technician at an oil company. He was the younger brother of the illustrator, William Dodge Stevens. Like his brother, Edward was eager to pursue a career as an artist and, just as William had done, Dalton left home at the age of 20 and enrolled at the Chicago Art Institute.

After Edward graduated in 1902, both he and William moved to New York City, where they worked together and eventually set up an art studio in Greenwich Village. Both William and Edward found success working as commercial illustrators and they were responsible for some of the most memorable covers of the pulp era. Edward and William both continued to live and work together through the Great Depression and both were highly respected and acclaimed for their work.

Tragically, at the start of the 1930s, Edward Dalton Stevens started to lose both his eyesight and his hearing. Eventually, he became totally blind. Unable to work and feeling that he had become burden to his brother, Edward Dalton Stevens committed suicide on August 14th, 1939. The following obit appeared in the New York Times: