John Francis “Frank” Holme, printmaker, illustrator, educator and book printer, was born in Corinth, West Virginia on 29th June 1868. He grew up in Keyser, West Virginia where he graduated from high school. As a young man, Holme worked as a reporter and artist for the Wheeling Register. In the mid 1890's he relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and, after two years with the Pittsburgh Press, moved to Chicago. There he worked as an illustrator for several newspapers, including the Chicago Post, the Chicago Chronicle and the Daily News. Holme was known for his ability to capture action with quick sketches. He explored many methods for illustration, experimenting in chalk-plate, copper-plate etching, drypoint, and photo-engravings from pen and ink drawings. 

In 1895, Holme founded the Bandar Log Press and printed his first book, Just for Fun, in his home in Chicago. When Holme was stricken with tuberculosis, he moved himself and the press to Asheville, North Carolina in 1901. There, the second Bandar Log Press book, Swanson, Able Seaman, was printed. In a quest to cure his illness, he moved to Arizona. Unable to be idle, he printed a series of booklets of tales written by George Ade and illustrated by Holme, known as Strenuous Lad’s Library.

Holme's masterpiece is undoubtedly Poker Rubaiyat (1903). Poker Rubaiyat was the first and perhaps the most ambitious of the nine works published by Bandar Log. Lacking more sophisticated equipment, and operating out of a “printing shack” in Arizona (still a decade away from achieving statehood), the illustrations were cut into wood blocks with a jackknife by Holme who also designed the book and, according to the prospectus, “scratched out” key-blocks for the initials, all of which were eventually destroyed after a total of 274 copies were pressed.

In a further effort to treat his tuberculosis, Holme attempted to relocate to Denver, where he died of the disease in 1904 at the age of 36.