Lancelot Speed was a famous Victorian illustrator of books, usually of a fantastical or romantic nature. He is probably most well-known for his illustrations for Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.- Biography :Lang was born in Selkirk...

's fairy story books

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books — also known as Andrew Lang's "Coloured" Fairy Books or Andrew Lang's Fairy Books of Many Colors — are a series of twelve collections of fairy tales, published between 1889 and 1910...

. Speed is credited as the designer on the 1916 silent movie version of the novel She by H. Rider Haggard, which he had illustrated.

He was also the director of a number of early British silent films.

• The Wonderful Adventures of Pip, Squeak and Wilfred series
  • The Wonderful Adventures Of Pip, Squeak And Wilfred
  • Pip And Wilfred Detectives
  • Wilfred's Wonderful Adventures
  • Over The Edge Of The World
  • Popski's Early Life
  • The Castaways
  • The Six-Armed Image
  • Trouble In The Nursery
  • Ups And Downs
  • Wilfred's Nightmare

Lancelot Speed's cartoon work is the source of the nickname for the colourful commander of the WWII Special Forces unit "Popski's Private Army

Popski's Private Army

Popski's Private Army, officially No. 1 Demolition Squadron, PPA, was a unit of British Special Forces founded in Cairo in 1942 by Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Peniakoff DSO MC. Popski's Private Army was one of several raiding units formed in the Western Desert during the Second World War...

". Lieutenant Colonel

Lieutenant colonel

Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...

 Vladimir Peniakoff

Vladimir Peniakoff

Lieutenant-Colonel Vladimir Peniakoff DSO MC , nicknamed "Popski", was the founder and commanding officer of "Popski's Private Army".- Early life :Vladimir Peniakoff was born in Belgium to Russian parents...

 DSO MC, a Belgian of White Russian

White Emigre

A white émigré was a Russian who emigrated from Russia in the wake of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, and who was in opposition to the contemporary Russian political climate....

 descent, was called "Popski" by Bill Kennedy Shaw, the Intelligence Officer of the Long Range Desert Group

Long Range Desert Group

The Long Range Desert Group was a reconnaissance and raiding unit of the British Army during the Second World War. The commander of the German Afrika Corps, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, admitted that the LRDG "caused us more damage than any other British unit of equal strength".Originally called...

, because his signallers had trouble with the spelling of his surname. Peniakoff earned early notoriety (and his MC) with his-behind-the-lines raids to blow up German petrol dumps, transported there and back, in some exasperation, by the LRDG.

In the Pip, Squeak and Wilfred

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred was a long-running British newspaper strip cartoon published in the Daily Mirror from 1919 to 1956, as well as the Sunday Pictorial in the early years. It was conceived by Bertram Lamb, who took the role of Uncle Dick, signing himself in an early book, and was drawn until...

 adventures before the start of WWII there were two hairy characters: one was a scheming, plotting, bomb-throwing Bolshevik and the other was his dog. The mad Russian was actually called "Professor Wtzkoffski" and it was the dog that was called "Popski". These cartoon characters in the Daily Mirror were well known to all the soldiers, and in his best-selling book about his small irregular unit "Popski" said "...I was delighted with my nickname...".