A. J. Donnell

A. J. Donnell (9 November 1905 — 26 October 1991) was an American jazz drummer, advertising manager, illustrator, and book cover artist. He is remembered for his illustrious book covers, and as one of the four founding members of Fantasy Press.

A. J. Donnell was born Andrew Julian Donnell on November 9, 1905, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Donnell was one of the founding members of Fantasy Press—an American publishing house specializing in fantasy and science fiction titles founded in 1946 by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach. For three years, he worked as the company's art director, providing covers and interior art for the first publications of books by several popular science fiction writers of the 1940s, including Robert A. Heinlein, E. E. "Doc" Smith, A. E. van Vogt, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Eric Frank Russell, L. Sprague de Camp, and Jack Williamson. A signed edition of Williamson's The Cometeers (1950), evidently a gift to Donnell, has an inscription indicating that this author was both a friend and an admirer of the artist.

Donnell's covers tended to emphasize simply drawn designs, but these often seemed perfectly appropriate for the material; his stark, sometimes monochromatic renderings of spacecraft for the covers for E. E. "Doc" Smith's Space Operas, for example, capture the unpolished energy of this work much better than later, more sophisticated artwork. 

Donnell worked for Fantasy Press until 1950, when Lloyd Arthur Eshbach became its sole owner. Before working at Fantasy Press, in the 1940, Donnell worked for Glidden Paint Company in Reading, Pennsylvania, as a staff artist. Lloyd Arthur Eshbach was his colleague at Glidden and when he founded Fantasy Press in November 1946, Donnell went with him. The other Glidden employees to join Eshbach were G.H. MacGregor (sales) and Leman H. Houck (accountant.)

According to find a grave, Donnell also served as a Staff Sergeant in the Second World War.

Cover Art

• Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science-Fiction Writing (1947)
• Spacehounds of IPC: A Tale of the Inter-Planetary Corporation (1947)
• The Book of Ptath (1947)
• The Forbidden Garden (1947)
• The Legion of Space (1947)
• Interior Art: The Legion of Space (cover) (1947)
• Interior Art: The Legion of Space (cover) 2
• Beyond This Horizon (1948)
• Darker Than You Think (1948)
• Interior Art: Darker Than You Think (cover) (1948)
• Divide and Rule (1948)
• Sinister Barrier (1948)
• Interior Art: Sinister Barrier (cover) (1948)
• Skylark Three (1948)
• The Black Flame (1948)
• Triplanetary (1948)
• A Martian Odyssey and Others (1949)
• Seven Out of Time (1949)
• Skylark of Valeron (1949)
• The Incredible Planet (1949)
• First Lensman (1950)
• The Beasts from Beyond (1950)
• Beyond This Horizon (1976)
• Skylark Three (2003)

Interior Art

• Spacehounds of IPC: A Tale of the Inter-Planetary Corporation (1947)
• The Book of Ptath (1947)
• The Legion of Space (1947)
• The Legion of Space (endpapers) (1947)
• The Legion of Space (frontispiece) (1947)
• The Legion of Space 2
• The Legion of Space 3
• The Forbidden Garden (1947)
• Skylark Three (1948)
• The Black Flame (1948)
• Triplanetary (1948)
• Skylark of Valeron (1949)
• First Lensman (1950)
• The Book of Ptath (1975)
• First Lensman (1997)
• Triplanetary (1997)
• Skylark Three (2003)

Donnell died on October 26, 1991, at the age of 86, in Pennsylvania. He is buried at Fort Scott National Cemetery, Fort Scott, Kansas.