Arthur Burdett Frost (1851 -1928) born in Philadelphia. He studied commercial art and lithography as a boy, achieving success with his first illustrated book Out of the Hurly-Burly . In 1875 Frost was hired by the New York Graphic and a year later began illustrating books for Harper and Brothers .He spent a year in London in 1877, working for Judy, where his comic art attracted the attention of Lewis Carroll who commissioned Rhyme? and Reason? published after his return to America in 1883. Carroll admired his work, considered more commissions, and then fell out with the artist.

On March 19, 1897 Clemens wrote to Frank Bliss regarding illustrations for the first edition of Following the Equator: "I suppose A. B. Frost is an expensive artist; but if he is not too expensive it might be well to get him to make 3 or 4 full-page humorous pictures. He is the best humorous artist that I know of, and he might not be difficult to deal with for the reason that he told me 3 years ago that he had long had an ambition to make some illustrations for me." (Leary, p. 268).

From 1906 to 1914 Frost and his family lived in France, taking a house near Monet at Giverny. His son also ABF, was great friends with Patrick Henry Bruce and was sufficiently familiar with French avant-garde art to introduce the latter to Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Frost pere developed an illness in the eye, damaging his colour perceptions yet continued to produce watercolour paintings. He died in 1928 in Pasadena, California.