The Argosy magazine started in the USA, and you can read about it here, but as far as I know Sheppard never did any illustrations for this magazine. His drawings appeared in the UK version of Argosy published by Amalgamated Press, which was first published in June 1926 (by Cassells for the first year before AP took it on). The small pocket sized magazine was printed monthly on pulp paper through most of its life and featured stories from around the world. Latterly it began printing new stories.
Tracking down illustrators in Argosy is hard enough when most of the time they are not credited, but during the Fifties there was a time where credits appeared in the contents page, but not all credits! I also found some illustrations re-used years after Sheppard died in 1958! So for the moment this is the most comprehensive listing of Sheppard's work in Argosy!
The earliest I've found so far is a story by Tom Hopkinson (it's likely the same Hopkinson who worked with Stefan Lorant on Lilliput and Picture Post) called "North of Midnight" about post-war Finland, and a construction engineer called Garrod whose objective is to replace three vital bridges destroyed during the war. His encounters with the Laplanders are the meat of the story and Sheppard illustrates a reindeer with full antlers and also a reindeer pulling a sledge.
| Argosy January 1955 p.29 |
| Argosy January 1955 p.43 |
Argosy January 1956 has a jungle story by David Walker called "Harry Black" which was serialised over three issues. The book was first published by Collins in 1956, so this is hot off the press! A film starring Stewart Granger was also created in 1958. Sheppard provides an image in Argosy (not the book) of the head and front of a tiger coming through long grass and a profile of a tiger leaping,
"This is a novel with atmospheric tension. The end impression [is] that of a first rate adventure against the sultry background of of a man-eating tiger. Black, a war hero, [faces his own cowardice]. Difficult reading at times, the [story is] told against an elusively presented past and a romance between Black and Tanner's wife. But hunting story fans will like it." ~ Kirkus Review
| Argosy January 1956 p108 |
The above image is repeated on page 123 too. They are both interesting in that, even with the rough printing, they appear very 'scruffy' in my opinion. I almost wonder if they are reprints from something earlier.
| Argosy January 1956 p.109 |
The two images above of the tiger also appear in the second instalment in February 1956 (the leaping tiger p.105 and the crouching tiger p. 143). I have not seen a copy of the March instalment and no illustrations are listed on the incomparable FictionMags Index (edited by William G. Contento and Phil Stephensen-Payne).
| Argosy January 1957 p.69 |
The January 1957 issue has an image on p.69 to accompany the beautiful story "The Christmas Miracle" by Paul Gallico that recounts the capture of a settler family by a band of Indians in pre-revolutionary America. The victims’ demise seems all but certain, but it’s the 24th December and miracles can happen… I don't need to say anything about Gallico as his stories are still in print as are those of the next author to be illustrated by Sheppard: H. E. Bates.
| Argosy October 1957, pp.102-103 |
The story, "A Great day for Bonzo" warranted a headline on the cover.
| Argosy October 1957,Cover |
The H.E.Bates Companion tells us:
this novella-length piece is experimental in style. The narrator recalls a day-long adventure with two other children, in which they unintentionally find themselves involved in an ugly domestic conflict, with overtones of death and tragedy. A television adaptation (episode four in the 1974 series "Childhood") was directed by Michael Apted
| Argosy October 1957 p.124 |
| Argosy October 1957 p.143 |
Three children find themselves unwittingly at the center of an adult drama involving a woman, the man she wants to marry, and her angry, violent father. Bates brilliantly manipulates the point of view, keeping it limited to a child's perception yet fully developing the conflicts and passions the children do not comprehend. ~ H.E. Bates: A Literary Life, by Dean R. Baldwin 1987
Next we have a story from the Netherlands by Jan de Hartog, "Gaudy Palace". de Hartog ran away from home when 10, we are told, later entering the Amsterdam Naval College and finally started writing short stories after being expelled "This school is not for pirates!" he was told. His adventures at sea gave him a lot of material.
| Argosy November 1957 p.69 |
This story is about the need to preserve a Governor's life in Tarakan, Borneo as he was the only person who spoke Dutch! The Doctor who attends encounters someone faking his illness, but why would the Sultan do that?
The January 1958 issue of Argosy has an unusual double page spread topped with an illustration of two pigs on a picket fence and finished off with a sow and her piglets! The whole thing is reproduced here.
| Argosy January 1958, pp.62-63 |