Frank Dobias (born May 11, 1900) was an Austrian-born American illustrator of children's books. Among many other works, his illustrations for the Japanese version of Little Black Sambo made the book a bestseller in Japan, selling well over a million copies between 1953 and 1988.

Early life and career

Dobias was born in Gloggnitz, Austria and emigrated to the United States in 1923,^[1] where he started his professional career as illustrator mostly for Macmillan Publishers books. The illustrations used in the Japanese best-seller were originally drawn for Little Black Sambo published from Macmillan in 1927.^[2]

The Macmillan 1927 version was revived from Komichi Shobo Publishing, a Japanese publisher in Tokyo, in 2008.

Selected works

• Bannerman, Helen. Little Black Sambo. The Happy Hour Books. Macmillan Publishers, 1927.
• Siebe, Josephine. Kasperle’s Adventures. Translated by Florence Geiser. Macmillan Publishers, 1929.
• Morris, William. Sons of the Volsungs. Adapted by Dorothy Hosford from Sigurd the Volsung by William Morris. Macmillan Publishers, 1932.
• Junior Bible. Macmillan Publishers, 1936.
• Cook, Canfield. Sky Attack. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1942. OCLC 4865269
• Kelsey, Alice (Geer). Once the Hodja. Longman’s 1943.　Jeremy Schiff's Hodja homepage contains some illustrations by Frank Dobias for Once the Hodja.
• Bannerman, Helen. Chibikuro Sambo. Komichi Shobo Publishing, 2008. (A Japanese translation of Macmillan's 1927 version.)

References