This book jacket biography is not of the author of the book shown above but of its illustrator. The book is Black Majesty: The Life of Christophe, King of Haiti by John W. Vandercook (1902-1963), published in 1928 by Harper & Brothers. I have the fourteenth edition, this particular book having come from the collection of Margaret B. Nicholas of Bartlett and Marietta, Ohio.
The illustrator of Black Majesty was the enigmatic Mahlon Blaine. Born Mahlon Blain on June 16, 1894, in Albany, Oregon, Blaine was a commercial artist, costume designer, muralist, illustrator, and fine artist, possibly also a stage actor. He worked in Albany and Portland, Oregon, and in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He began his career as an illustrator in the 1920s. In the early 1960s, he illustrated a number of reprints of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). On August 18, 1932, Blaine married Fern Bowman (dates unknown) in Los Angeles city or county, California, a fact missing from many biographical sketches of him. By 1942, when he filled out his World War II draft card, he did not list her as next of kin. I guess we can assume that their marriage had ended by then. Blaine is known to have exaggerated, if not to have fabricated the facts of his life. I'm not sure how much stock I would put in the book jacket bio shown here.
Like many artists, Mahlon Blaine struggled to pay the bills. He is supposed to have been impoverished late in life and to have died in obscurity. The end came in January 1969 in Los Angeles city or county.
There is an entry for Mahlon Blaine in the online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, here. You can also read about him on the website Bill & Sue-On Hillman's ERBzine, here. Fortunately for fans of his work and for the art of fantasy in general, there are several recent books showing Blaine's artwork.
Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley
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