While distinctions between artists and illustrators have not always favored the quiet work of the 20th century book and magazine illustrator, John Alan Maxwell was named one of the top ten illustrators in the country in 1936 by the
Society of Illustrators in New York. He was described in a 1947 profile in American Artist magazine as the quintessential "illustrator of romance". Maxwell illustrated multiple books and magazine serials for
Pearl S. Buck for over a decade, including the portrait of the author's mother for the cover of the 1935 book,
The Exile, and the companion portrait of her father for the cover of her 1936 book,
Fighting Angel in addition to his illustrations of the serialized editions of these two books in ''Woman's Home Companion'' from 1935 to 1937. Mrs. Buck was the first American woman to be awarded both the
Pulitzer Prize (1932) and
Nobel Prize (1938) for literature, and these book illustrations are encased along with Buck's Nobel Prize in a glass case at the
Green Hills Farm in
Perkasie, Pennsylvania. For the Doubleday Doran & Company, Maxwell illustrated a 1929 United States edition of
The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel by
Baroness Emmuska Orczy, the British novelist, playwright and artist. In a profile of Maxwell in the February, 1948 issue of Esquire Magazine, writer Robert U. Godsoe described the artist: Maxwell was a contemporary of
N.C. Wyeth, an important 20th century illustrator. Maxwell and Wyeth each illustrated five novels for
Rafael Sabatini. Wyeth and Maxwell also both illustrated works for
C. S. Forester's popular
Horatio Hornblower series. Maxwell illustrated the dust jacket for the 1933 first edition of
Hervey Allen's
Anthony Adverse, followed by Wyeth's illustration of a 1934 edition of the same book. Both editions featured interior decorations by Allan McNab. Maxwell's 1933 dust jacket illustration re-appears as an embossed duotone on a bookbound edition of
Anthony Adverse in 1936. This same illustration also appears on a 1933 wooden Arteno "Picture Puzzle" in full color. Wyeth and Maxwell both illustrated books for Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, the authors of
Mutiny on the Bounty (Wyeth) and
No More Gas (Maxwell).
No More Gas originally appeared in the
Saturday Evening Post in 1939 as
Out of Gas. Today, Maxwell's original illustrations also adorn recent reprint editions of
Allan Eckert's novels, including
The Frontiersmen,
Wilderness Empire and
The Conquerors. Maxwell was still illustrating books for Eckert when he died in 1984. ==Partial List of Maxwell's works==