{{Short description|English illustrator}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}} [[File:Alan Elsden Odle - Study for Voltaire’s 'Candide'.jpg|thumb|Study for Voltaire's ''Candide'', by Odle]]

'''Alan Elsden Odle''' (1888–1948) was an English illustrator, husband of the English novelist Dorothy Richardson, whom he married in 1917.<ref>Allan according to 1901 census and some sources on <http://www.ancestry.com>, but these are probably transcription errors</ref> (He used his birth name Allan up until about 1915 but then used Alan for the rest of his life). His style was a precursor of surrealism.{{citation needed|date=November 2024}} He illustrated an English edition of Voltaire's ''Candide'' (G. Routledge, 1922), Mark Twain's ''1601: A Tudor Fireside Conversation'' (London: Printed for Subscribers only, 1936), and ''The Mimiambs of Herondas''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.booktryst.com/ |title=Home |website=booktryst.com}}</ref> He also designed the dust jacket for James Hanley's ''Ebb and Flow'' (London: John Lane, 1932), other Hanley novels for Lane, and Dorothy Richardson's ''Backwater'' (1916).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.booktryst.com/ |title=Home |website=booktryst.com}}</ref> He contributed to a number of periodicals such as ''The Gypsy'', ''The Golden Hind'' (1922–25), the US ''Vanity Fair'', ''The Studio'', and the UK ''Argosy''.<ref>Martin Steenson, ''The Life and Work of Alan Odle'' (Stroud: Books & Things, 2012).</ref>

Odle was a bohemian who associated with an artistic circle that included Augustus John, Jacob Epstein, and Wyndham Lewis. When he married Dorothy Richardson he was tubercular and an alcoholic, and was not expected to live long. However, he stopped drinking and lived until 1948.<ref>Doris B Wallace, & Howard E. Gruber, ''Creative People at Work''. p. 151.</ref> Odle was very thin and "over six feet tall with waist-length hair wound around the outside of his head", which he never cut. He also rarely cut his fingernails.<ref>Gill Hanscombe, "Foreword, ''Pilgrimage'' 1, London: Virago, 1989, p. 10, p. 4.</ref> From 1917 until 1939, the couple spent their winters in Cornwall and their summers in London; and then stayed permanently in Cornwall until Odle's death in 1948. Richardson supported herself and her husband with freelance writing for periodicals for many years, as Alan made little money from his art.{{citation needed|date=November 2024}} Alan Odle's brother was Edwin Vincent Odle (1890–1942), author of the minor science fiction classic ''The Clockwork Man'' (1923), and Odle was a friend and correspondent of the writer Claude Houghton.<ref>Gloria G. Fromm, ''Dorothy Richardson: a biography''. University of Illinois Press, 1977. {{ISBN|0252006313}} (p. 418).</ref>

The film director and Python Terry Gilliam is a connoisseur of his work.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}}

==Bibliography (secondary sources)== *There is an article on him by Martin Steenson in the ''Antiquarian Book Monthly Review'', October 1979. * The Imaginative Book Illustration Society at [http://www.bookillustration.org] has a bibliography of the published drawings compiled by Martin Steenson: ''Studies in Illustration'', Issue 9, Summer 1998. * Martin Steenson has also published a book on Odle, ''The Life and Work of Alan Odle'' (Stroud: Books & Things, 2012),126 pages, {{ISBN|978-0-9544395-1-4}} (includes a full bibliography) [http://www.booksandthings.co.uk]. Review by George H. Thomson in ''Pilgrimages: The Journal of Dorothy Richardson Studies'' Number 5, 2012 [http://dorothyrichardson.org/journal/issue5/pjdrs_5.htm] *Herbert B. Grimsditch, "Mr. Alan Odle: A Master of the Grotesque", ''The Studio'', London, England, 1 January 1928, Volume 95, no.418, p.&nbsp;23. *"An Exhibition by Three Book Illustrators: John Austen, Harry Clarke and Alan Odle", ''The Studio'', London, England, 15 May 1925, Volume 89, no.386, p.&nbsp;261

== Notes == {{reflist}}

==External links== * [http://www.artnet.com/artist/667030/alan-odle.html Examples of his work] * [http://www.alanodle.com There is also a website which has a picture of Odle as well as several of his illustrations]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Odle, Alan}} Category:1888 births Category:1948 deaths Category:20th-century English illustrators