“Francis Underwood and Mildred” (October, 1889)
In “The Old Bascom Place” Joel Chandler Harris, The Century Illustrated 38, p 913
by Edward Winsor (EW) Kemble (1861-1933)
6 x 8 in., ink on Board
Coppola Collection

EW Kemble had a quite noteworthy career as an illustrator. An early contributor to the new Life magazine (1881), Kemble’s work got the attention of Mark Twain, who invited Kemble to illustrate the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). He subsequently illustrated several other famous books, including Twain’s Puddin’ Head Wilson (1894), Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1891 edition), Washington Irving’s Knickerbocker History of New York(1893 edition), and many of Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remusstories, starting in the late 1880s.

This illustration is from a Southern plantation story, “The Old Bascom Place,” written by Joel Chandler Harris and published in the October 1889 edition of The Century Illustrated literary magazine, at the same time Kemble was working with Harris on some of the Uncle Remus stories.

Thanks to the fame he garnered from Huck Finn, Kemble became the go-to artist for representing African American people and culture, which is how he ended up illustrating both Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Uncle Remus. The negative stereotypes in his widespread imagery influenced the way cartoonists depicted these subjects for generations.