Steele was born on 6 August 1873 at Eagle Mills, Marquette, Michigan, and studied at the National Academy of Design and elsewhere in New York City. He worked for The Illustrated American and then moved into freelanceillustration. His work for Scribner's Magazine included the use of colour tints. Other magazines for which Steele did illustrations included The Century Magazine, McClure's, The American Magazine, Metropolitan Magazine, Woman's Home Companion and Everybody's Magazine. In the 1930s he produced theatrical sketches for the New York Herald Tribune. Steele married Mary Thyng in 1898, and for much of the time until 1912 they lived at Nutley, New Jersey, then returning to New York. The couple separated in 1936. He died at Bellevue Hospital, New York on 6 July 1944.
Sherlock Holmes illustrations
For Collier's Weekly in 1903, Steele was invited to do the illustrations for The Return of Sherlock Holmes. He continued to produce drawings for the Conan Doyle stories for various publishers during the rest of his career. His model for Holmes was the portrayal of the character by the American actor William Gillette. Steele wrote an essay in 1929 titled "Sherlock Holmes: A Little History of the World's Most Famous Fictional Character", in which he stated regarding his illustrations, "Everybody agreed that Mr. Gillette was the ideal Sherlock Holmes, and it was inevitable that I should copy him." Steele's illustrations were largely responsible for popularizing the association of Holmes with a calabash pipe and deerstalker hat. Steele was a fan of Holmes and wrote several short Sherlock Holmes spoofs. Vincent Starrett dedicated his 1933 book The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes to Steele and two other people including William Gillette. In the book, Starrett praised Steele's illustrations of Holmes, stating that "No happier association of author and artist can be imagined". Steele contributed the essay "Sherlock Holmes in Pictures" to Starrett’s 1940 anthology 221B: Studies in Sherlock Holmes.
