ASTRÓLOGO

Christa Zaat

Newell Convers Wyeth (American artist and illustrator) 1882 - 1945
On the fourth day comes the astrologer from his crumbling old tower, July 1916, from Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger and American Artists Edition, Volume 8 - The Mysterious Stranger
s.l.

Newell Convers Wyeth was encouraged to draw when he was a child. When he was about 20 years old he began working for a magazine, the Saturday Evening Post. They sent him to study southwest culture and for three months he lived among the Indians and herded sheep. He sketched and painted pictures to show what life was like among the Indians. He married and he and his wife raised five children. Their son Andrew became one of America's foremost artists. Andrew, who was ill when he was a child, was homeschooled and his father taught him how to be an artist. Two more of their children, Henrietta and Carolyn, and also their grandson, Jamie, (Andrew's son) became artists. Jamie, when he was 21, painted a portrait of John F. Kennedy. Jamie had also been homeschooled and trained by his father.

N.C. studied with Howard Pyle, a man who gave free art lessons to students that he thought had a lot of artistic ability. Wyeth became a book illustrator. The first book he illustrated was Robert Lewis Stevenson's Treasure Island. During his lifetime he drew and painted about 3,000 pictures and illustrated 112 books. In the 1930's he began painting a set of large murals for a life insurance company, but he and one of his grandsons were both killed in a car accident in 1945. His son Andrew and his son-in-law finished the work.

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Gabriel Wells Definitive Edition of Mark Twain's Works
Volume 27: The Mysterious Stranger And Other Stories. The seven stories in this collection are the same as those found in the first edition of the book issued by Harper and Brothers in 1922 in their Uniform Library edition. Three stories had previously been published by Harper and Brothers as single books: A Horse's Tale (1906), Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (1909) and The Mysterious Stranger (1916). The remainder of the stories "A Fable," "My Platonic Sweetheart," "Hunting the Deceitful Turkey," and "The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm" had been published in magazines during Mark Twain's lifetime.

Volume 27 features three of Wyeth's illustrations from the original Harper's Magazine publication. The illustrations, originally in color, were reprinted in black and white in the Gabriel Wells Definitive Edition. Wyeth's astrologer, the character invented by Albert Bigelow Paine and Frederick Duneka, is not in Mark Twain's original manuscripts of the story. However, Wyeth's illustration of the astrologer has helped to firmly anchor that character into the national consciousness as an integral part of the original story. Harper's 1916 edition of The Mysterious Stranger remains a favorite with both Wyeth and Mark Twain collectors. Illustration titled "On the Fourth Day Comes the Astrologer From His Crumbling Old Tower" by N. C. Wyeth was reprinted in black and white for the Gabriel Wells Definitive Edition.