Peter F. Copeland was a freelance illustrator best known for a historical series of Dover coloring books. He passed away in December 2007 at his home in Virginia. Mr. Copeland wrote and illustrated books for Dover and others from 1974 to until 2006, and most of his books are still in print. Mr. Copeland was a merchant marine during World War II, serving on a tanker hauling aviation fuel to the Pacific. He then spent two years in the Army Transportation Corps, where he became proficient as an artist while drawing military vehicles, aircraft, and ships, which led to a freelance career as an illustrator and author of historical books and magazine articles.

In the 1950s, Mr. Copeland worked at the Smithsonian as chief of the illustration department for the old Museum of History and Technology exhibitions, where he also worked as a writer and historical researcher on exhibitions dealing with the history of military aviation and ballooning. Mr. Copeland joined the Company of Military Historians in 1959 and was elected a fellow in 1964. He received its Distinguished Service Award in 2001 and 2007. He was a volunteer civilian combat artist in Vietnam in 1967, and contributed more than 40 paintings to the Army War Art Collection. Copeland left the Smithsonian in 1973 and became a full-time freelancer. In 1977 he worked as a consultant on a nautical archeological project in the Bahamas and West Indies.

He was part of a project to combine photography with underwater drawing of an 18th-century shipwreck, drawing with grease pencils on plexiglass while diving the wreck. He later created detailed watercolors of the ship.