In 1914, 30 year-old Lawrence Sterne Stevens was serving as a cartographer in the British army when he was captured by the German army.  Accused of being a spy, Stevens was forced to dig his own grave and was mere minutes away from being executed by a firing squad when he was rescued by advancing troops.  Having narrowly survived the war, Stevens went on to study at the Academie Royale des Beaux Arts Bruxelles in Belgium and, from 1941 until his retirement in 1953, Stevens was one of the most prominent of the pulp illustrators.  At the same time that Stevens was working, his son, Peter Stevens, was also a much sought after illustrator.

Here are just a few examples of Lawrence Sterne Stevens’s work:

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