Louis Darling Jr.

Louis Darling, Jr. (April 26, 1916 – January 21, 1970) was an American illustrator, writer, and environmentalist, best known for illustrating the Henry Huggins series and other children's books written by Beverly Cleary. He and his wife Lois provided illustrations for the first edition of Silent Spring.

Biography Darling was born in Stamford, Connecticut, and would live in Connecticut for most of his life. He attended the Grand Central School of Art in New York City.

Also in 1946, Darling was hired by William Morrow and Company to illustrate Roderick Haig-Brown's book A River Never Sleeps. Subsequently, he began illustrating, and then writing, children's books, mostly for Morrow. He was assigned to Beverly Cleary's first book, Henry Huggins, in 1950, which began his best-known association; he would illustrate most of Cleary's books until his death. The character of Huggins was called a "modern Tom Sawyer" in the 1950s.

He wrote his first book, Greenhead, in 1954. He would later write: "I started to write my own books because it seemed to me that there was seldom enough cooperation between author and illustrator. The best way to get this cooperation was to become the author myself."

Darling wrote and illustrated The Gull's Way, a book about American herring gulls on an island in Maine, which was published in 1965. To research it, he had camped alone on the uninhabited island for six weeks, observing and photographing the gulls.

Published books One of Darling's illustrations for Beverly Cleary's 1962 book Henry and the Clubhouse. As writer and illustrator

As illustrator only