Frank Leslie

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For the American western gunman, see Franklin Leslie.

Frank Leslie (1821-1880) was an American engraver, illustrator, and publisher of family periodicals. Born in Ipswich, England as Henry Carter. Son of a glove manufacturer, educated in Ipswich, trained to commerce in London, he showed a natural bent for art and contributed sketches to the Illustrated London News, signing them Frank Leslie. These were so cordially welcomed that he gave up commerce and was made superintendent of engraving on that journal. He made himself an expert and inventor in his new work,[1] in 1848 came to the United States, and in 1854 began publishing the first of his many illustrated journalistic ventures, The Gazette of Fashion. The New York Journal soon followed, with Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (1855) (called Leslie's Weekly), The Boy's and Girl's Weekly, The Budget of Fun, and many others. Illustrations made by Leslie and his artists on the battlefield during the American Civil War are well-regarded for their historical value. He was commissioner to the Paris Exhibition of 1867 and received a prize there for his artistic services. His second wife, Miriam Florence Leslie, ably managed his business after his death, and was a notable feminist author in her own right.