Featured original illustration art by Edmund Varian. does anybody know book its from?

This a ORIGINAL WILD WEST ILLUSTRATION ART. Comprising an action filled charcoal and pastel rendering of a confrontation on a train by British illustration artist George Edmond Varian (1865-1923). Signed lower right and contained in a glazed contemporary frame. 17.25 inches x 21.25 inches. Verso with label supposedly the title for this work and accompanying cutline "The Hunt for a Plan" "The sheriff's revolver pointing straight at his heart."

my question is, does anybody know the book or magazine this was used for? i did a search and have not found another one like it, or one sold, until it came to me of course. any help would be appreciated. Its staying in my collection.

 

i have a painting that was made for a 1st Nations book illustration....but was never used..

just saying........yours may not have been used either...or maybe then the book title would be written on the reverse as well..........

 

that is possible. I know they used his illustrations for the first versions of "Treasure Island."

 

Looks like it is an illustration for a short story titled "A Hunt for a Play" (not Plan) by Clara Morris. McClure's Magazine, 1906. I found a link through Google Books. The phrase "The sheriff's revolver pointing straight at his heart" was from the story, and also a caption used on the picture.

I hope this link will take you to it.
https://books.google.com/books?id=59JrxtPVLt8C&pg=PA641&lpg=PA641&dq="varian"+"sheriff's+revolver"&source=bl&ots=u6xJQAzMZj&sig=ACfU3U0F0RGUWgU5vzsfT5hp6xCsum1BTw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiu25Gl5aHzAhUFHM0KHfscDlgQ6AF6BAgGEAM#v=onepage&q="varian" "sheriff's revolver"&f=false

 

By the way, Clara Morris was a stage actress, well known, who also became a writer after she retired. I have a photo of her somewhere, I think. I did not know about her writing career. It is mentioned in an article about her in Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Morris

 

that is so dang cool. Thank you for getting me on the right path. To see his work in a short story, and by a famous actor/writer is very cool indeed. This is why i love this business. The chase for the information and provenance behind something. tracing all the way back to this lady, whom, without her writing, the illustration would never have been created. thank you so much!!

 

You're welcome!

By the way, in case you should want to try to get a printed version of that article -- one way to do it would be to see if a library near you has copies of McClure's Magazine from that period. I'm not sure whether that magazine has ever been digitized in a way that you could download or print the whole article, but that would be an option. Or you could make photocopies from a printed version. If a library near you does not have the issue you could ask for an interlibrary loan through a public library. With articles it would not actually be a loan. They would get you a copy of it.

I looked in the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature and got a citation for the article, if you should choose to seek it out:

Article Author: Morris, Clara
Article Title: Hunt for a Play

Periodical citation:
McClure's Magazine, April 1906, Vol. 26, p636-645, 10pages

 

Issues of McClure's also come up on eBay occasionally and can be found listed on used book sites.

Debora