Victor Mays (Lewis Victor Mays) was born July 2, 1927, in New York City. He began drawing as a child, and also developed a love of the sea. He served in the United States Naval Reserve on active duty in 1945, and remained in the Naval Reserve for many years. He attended Ohio State University and graduated from Yale University in 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts. In 1953 he wrote and illustrated his first book, Fast Iron, an adventure story set aboard a nineteenth century whaling ship, for young adults. He wrote two more books for young adults, Action Starboard (1956), and Dead Reckoning (1967), but it is as an illustrator of children's and young adult books that he has become best known. In 1954 he illustrated Eilis Dillon's San Sebastian, and throughout his long and prolific career he has illustrated books for such well known authors as Jean Lee Latham, Nancy Bond, Patricia Wrightson, and Stephen Meader. He has illustrated over eighty books, including many biographies of famous Americans. He won a Coretta Scott King award in 1970 for Martin Luther King, Jr., Man of Peace (1969). Both his writings and his illustrations are historically oriented with emphasis on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and have been praised for their attention to detail and accuracy.
Biographical Sources: Something About the Author, vol. 5; Fourth Book of Junior Authors and Illustrators, pp. 261-262
From the guide to the Victor Mays Papers, 1960-1981, (University of Minnesota Libraries Children's Literature Research Collections [clrc])
