High Adventure: Westerns, Northerns and Other Lands

    (Old Tiger, 2006)

J. Allen St. John was a prolific artist whose work graced the covers and interiors of countless pulp magazines and hardcover books. Easily recognized for his illustrations of Tarzan and other creations by Edgar Rice Burroughs, he also produced an assorted wealth of varied material.

High Adventure concentrates primarily on what the subtitle describes as “Westerns, Northerns, and Other Lands.” As this suggests, the contents are filled with depictions of the Old West and Canadian North. But there are still plenty of imaginative and otherworldly illustrations to keep traditional St. John fans happy.

Packed from border to border, the pages are filled with scenes out of Arthurian legend and Kipling, plus the one book that St. John wrote: a children’s fairytale titled The Face in the Pool.

Whether it’s a Native American fighting a pike fish as large as a whale or a skeleton astride a horse, St. John’s art is always as fascinating as it was fantastic. This lavishly illustrated book is a must for any collector of his work.

— Michael Tierney
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