Henry Stephens

Background

Stephens was born in Philadelphia.

Career

About 1859 he went to New York under an engagement with Frank Leslie, and after a year or so transferred his services to Harper & Brothers. Stephens was well known as a caricaturist, excelling especially in the humorous delineation of animals, and drew cartoons and sketches for The Cyclopedia of Wit and Humor (1858), a book edited by William Evans Burton, Vanity Fair (1859-1863), Mistress Grundy (1869), Punchinello (1870), and other periodicals.

He contributed artwork to Mark Twain"s comic memoir, Roughing lieutenant and the novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner.

He illustrated some children"s books, including Aesop"s Fables, Death of Cock Robin, and The House that Jack Built. He wrote and illustrated The Goblin Snob (c 1855), a satirical poem, as well as The Comic Natural History of the Human Race (1851).

He died in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Achievements

• Stephens was a prolific artist, and accomplished a great amount of work for book and magazine illustration.