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Description: Abstract: Born near Leeds in 1864. Orphaned at the age of nine, he endured several years of poverty moving from one job to another and ended up begging on the streets. May was a talented artist and he eventually discovered he could make a living by drawing stage celebrities and selling the pictures to theatre fans. His cartoons were rarely overtly political, and had a deep sympathy for the poor. He brought a new simplicity of line to popular cartooning. He was a heavy drinker. This and his early poverty caused him serious health problems. He suffered from a wasting disease and when he died in 1903, aged thirty-nine, he weighed only five stone.
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