Available from:
Features & Reviews
"From the perspective of an educator I foresee limitless potential in bringing Classics Illustrated into the classroom. Probably well-known to teachers, parents, and librarians the Classics Illustrated titles are sure to be engaging and exciting comic book stories for an entirely new generation of readers. An A+ idea and comic book execution ebook format, I highly recommend these titles make their way into your child or student’s hands." - Dr. Katie Monnin Assistant Professor of Literacy at the University of North Florida
"Graphic Novels are beginning to earn a natural place in the classroom because the comics format has grown to encompass many thought-provoking ideas as well as providing powerful storytelling." - Stephen Weiner, Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels; Page by Page, Panel by Panel:
"The drawings and styles of different periods of time give children background information that they could not possibly learn in such detail by words alone." - Charlotte Stafford, pg 253 Classics Illustrated A Cultural History
Classics Illustrated was the most significant, successful, and influential publication of its kind. "They were the only comic books my parents would let me buy. - William B. Jones, Classics Illustrated A Cultural History
"Because students are more invested and engaged in graphic novels, their writing is more interesting, authentic and passionate. This provides more opportunity to facilitate writing instruction and skill development." - Maureen Bakis, The Graphic Novel Classroom: Powerful Teaching & Learning with Images
"A substantial, expanding body of evidence asserts that using graphic novels and comics in the classroom produces effective learning opportunities over a wider range of subjects and benefits various student populations, from hesitant readers to gifted students." - James Bucky Carter, Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels; Page by Page, Panel by Panel:
About the Author
Charles Dickens is probably the greatest novelist England ever produced. His innate comic genius and shrewd depictions of Victorian life -- along with his memorable characters -- have made him beloved by readers the world over. In Dickens' books live some of the most repugnant villains in literature, as well as some of the most likeable (and unlikely) heroes.
Born on February 7, 1812, Charles Dickens was the second of eight children in a family burdened with financial troubles. Despite difficult early years, he became the most successful British writer of the Victorian age.
In 1824, young Charles was withdrawn from school and forced to work at a boot-blacking factory when his improvident father, accompanied by his mother and siblings, was sentenced to three months in a debtor's prison. Once they were released, Charles attended a private school for three years. The young man then became a solicitor's clerk, mastered shorthand, and before long was employed as a Parliamentary reporter. When he was in his early twenties, Dickens began to publish stories and sketches of London life in a variety of periodicals.
It was the publication of Pickwick Papers (1836-1837) that catapulted the twenty-five-year-old author to national renown. Dickens wrote with unequaled speed and often worked on several novels at a time, publishing them first in monthly installments and then as books. His early novels Oliver Twist (1837-1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), and A Christmas Carol (1843) solidified his enormous, ongoing popularity. As Dickens matured, his social criticism became increasingly biting, his humor dark, and his view of poverty darker still. David Copperfield (1849-1850), Bleak House (1852-1853), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1861), and Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865) are the great works of his masterful and prolific period.
In 1858 Dickens's twenty-three-year marriage to Catherine Hogarth dissolved when he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. The last years of his life were filled with intense activity: writing, managing amateur theatricals, and undertaking several reading tours that reinforced the public's favorable view of his work but took an enormous toll on his health. Working feverishly to the last, Dickens collapsed and died on June 8, 1870, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood uncompleted.
Characters 
Quotes
Credits
By Charles Dickens
Genre: Coming of Age
Number of Original pages: 48
Written in the last decade of his life, Great Expectations reveals Dickens's dark attitudes toward Victorian society, its inherent class structure, and its materialism. Yet this novel persists as one of Dickens's most popular. Richly comic and immensely readable, Great Expectations overspills with vividly drawn characters, moral maelstroms, and the sorrow and pity of love. In an overgrown churchyard, a grizzled convict springs upon an orphan named Pip. The convict terrifies the young boy and threatens to kill him unless Pip helps further his escape. Later, Pip finds himself in the ruined garden where he meets the bitter and crazy Miss Havisham and her foster child Estella, with whom he immediately falls in love. After a secret benefactor gives him a fortune, Pip moves to London, where he cultivates great expectations for a life that would allow him to discard his impoverished beginnings and socialize with the idle upper class. As Pip struggles to become a gentleman and is tormented endlessly by the beautiful Estella, he slowly learns the truth about himself and his illusions. Beautifully illustrated, this classic tale will capture children's interest and spark their imagination inspiring a lifelong love of literature and reading.
Your Device
Screenshots
Classics Illustrated Synopsis
By William B. Jones, Author of Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History
For thirty years, from 1941 to 1971, CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED (originally known as CLASSIC COMICS) introduced GIs, bobby-soxers, and their baby-boom children to "Stories by the World's Greatest Authors"--a category that encompassed Homer's ODYSSEY and Frank Buck's BRING 'EM BACK ALIVE, Shakespeare's HAMLET and Talbot Mundy's KING--OF THE KHYBER RIFLES, Goethe's FAUST and Owen Wister's VIRGINIAN. Although the comic-book series of literary adaptations and biographies was disparaged by educator May Hill Arbuthnot and attacked by crusader Fredric Wertham, it gradually won the applause of skeptics and the affection of at least two generations.
