Helen Knipe Carpenter


Helen Knipe Carpenter was an illustrator and writer active in the early 20th century noted for her Art Nouveau illustrations and her adaptations of stage plays to novels.
Born Helen Alden Knipe on December 6, 1881 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a granddaughter of the novelist T. S. Arthur, she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under the tutelage of William Merritt Chase, Hugh Henry Brackenridge and Thomas Pollock Anshutz.
She married writer, playwright, and director Edward Childs Carpenter on June 1, 1907 in Philadelphia where they lived and worked for a number of years, summering in Connecticut.
Her works span the period from the late Art Nouveau period through the 1940s.

Works

YearTitle
1906Idelle Phelps, Your Health
1907Dwight Burroughs, Jack, the Giant Killer, Jr. with Elenore Plaisted Abbott
1908Millicent Olmsted, The Land of Never Was, Being the Adventures of Great-A, Little-a, and Bouncing B with Elenore Plaisted Abbott
1909Millicent Olmsted, The Land of Really True, Being the Everyday Life of Great-A, Little-a, and Bouncing B with Elenore Plaisted Abbott
1911Elbridge Hosmer Sabin, The Magical Man of Mirth with Elenore Plaisted Abbott
1911Elbridge Hosmer Sabin, Queen of the City of Mirth with Elenore Plaisted Abbott
1920Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales with Elenore Plaisted Abbott

YearTitle
1916The Cinderella Man, A Romance of Youth, based on the stage play by Edward Childs Carpenter
1932Whistling in the Dark, based on the stage play by Laurence Gross and Edward Childs Carpenter
1942Shylock's Daughter, with Edward Childs Carpenter

Carpenter died on February 15, 1959 in Litchfield, Connecticut. She and her husband Edward Childs Carpenter are interred in Town Hill Cemetery in New Hartford, Connecticut.