author
Margaret Armstrong
1867–1944
Best known for elegant Art Nouveau book covers, this American designer and writer also turned her sharp eye to the natural world, creating a landmark guide to western wildflowers. Her career moved easily between decorative art, illustration, and popular nonfiction.
1 Audiobook
Field Book of Western Wild Flowers
by Margaret Armstrong, J. J. (John James) Thornber
About the author
Born in New York in 1867, Margaret Neilson Armstrong built a remarkable career as a book cover designer, illustrator, and author. She became one of the most recognizable American designers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for her richly decorative bindings shaped by the Art Nouveau style.
Armstrong designed covers for many books and earned lasting praise for the way she brought color, pattern, and plant forms into everyday publishing. She later wrote and illustrated Field Book of Western Wild Flowers (1915), a major guide based on her own travel, observation, and botanical study in the American West.
In later years, she also wrote biographies and mystery novels, showing how wide her interests really were. She died in 1944, but her work still stands out for its combination of beauty, curiosity, and practical skill.