Wikipedia's premise of The Mysterious of Harris Burdick:
An encounter between a children's book editor named Peter Wenders and an author and illustrator named Harris Burdick, who says he has 14 stories that he has written; he has brought one picture from each story with a caption. He leaves with a promise to deliver the complete manuscripts if the editor chooses to buy the books. The next day, Burdick did not show up. Burdick never returned to Wenders office. Over the years, Wenders tried to find out who Harris Burdick was, but he never found out. Burdick was never seen again, and the samples are all that remain of his supposed books. Readers are challenged to imagine their own stories based on the images for the books. In 1984, Chris Van Allsburg visited Wenders' office, and Wenders showed him Burdick's drawings. Van Allsburg decided that if he were to publish the drawings, they might find out who Harris Burdick was.
Both Wenders and Van Allsburg were sure that someone would come forward with information about Burdick. Then, in 1993, a dealer in antique books told them that he had purchased an entire library that had previously belonged to a recently deceased woman, including an antique mirror with portraits of characters from Through the Looking-Glass. The mirror fell from the wall and cracked open. Neatly concealed between the wooden frame and the mirror was an image similar to Burdick's other works; its caption identified it as being from the Burdick story "Missing in Venice".
As stated on the Burdick website, Peter Wenders died in 2000 at the age of 91
Source material: Deadline.com