Robert E. and Jill P. May were career-long professors at Purdue University, Indiana, prior to their retirements. Robert May is an internationally recognized scholar of the ""filibusters,"" nineteenth-century adventurers who invaded foreign territory in private and illegal military expeditions. Jill May's research, writing, and teaching have illuminated multiculturalism in children’s literature. They are the co-authors of Howard Pyle: Imagining an American School of Art (2011). Michael Custode is a Canadian artist known for his evocative, black-and-white illustrations that imitate woodcut engravings. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art in 1986, he worked as a graphic designer before turning to illustration. His work has been reproduced in The Globe and Mail, The Washington Post, and Sports Illustrated, and recognized with awards from the Art Directors Club of Toronto and Advertising and Design Association of Ottawa.
Wyeth's pirate paintings transport the viewer into a world of imagination where larger-than-life figures like Blackbeard and Captain Morgan rule the seas and the next adventure is always just beyond the horizon. * Christie’s *