(American, 1874 - 1925)

Boarding the Vessel

1915

8 1/8 × 7 5/8 in. (20.6 × 19.4 cm)

2018.7

Gift of Mickey and Larry Magid, 2018

John Wolcott Adams was already working as an illustrator when Howard Pyle invited him to join his prestigious school in Wilmington as a teacher. Showing off Adams’s specialty of pen and ink, this drawing is one of several illustrating Stephen Vincent Benét’s poem “The Hemp: A Virginia Legend” in The Century Magazine in 1916. The poem traces the legacy of a pirate named Captain Hawk and his eventual downfall at the hands of Sir Henry Gaunt. Rather than depicting a raiding band of pirates taking a ship, Adams here illustrates Gaunt’s men boarding Hawk’s vessel, bringing an end to the pirate’s reign of terror.

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