author
Charles L. (Charles Lewis) Wrenn
1880–1952
Best known as an American illustrator and painter, this early 20th-century artist brought adventure stories and wartime tales to life with lively, dramatic images. His work appeared in many popular books for young readers, while he also built a career as a portrait and landscape painter.
1 Audiobook
The Camp Fire Boys at Log Cabin Bend; Or, Four Chums Afoot in the Tall Timber
by St. George Rathborne, Charles L. (Charles Lewis) Wrenn
About the author
Charles Lewis Wrenn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 18, 1880, and later made his career in New York. Sources describe him as an artist, portraitist, and illustrator, and note that he studied with William Merritt Chase and at the Art Students League.
As an illustrator, Wrenn is closely associated with popular juvenile fiction of the 1910s and 1920s. His name appears on editions of books such as The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields, Fighting in France, The Boy Inventors and the Vanishing Gun, and other adventure stories that mixed action, travel, and wartime excitement for young readers.
He also worked as a painter, especially in portrait and landscape subjects, and his artwork has continued to surface in museum, gallery, and auction records. Wrenn died on October 28, 1952, and is remembered today both for his book illustration and for his broader career as an American painter.