"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:

Herman Melville

Herman Melville's legend is as mammoth and elusive as the whale that established it. Moby-Dick stands as one of literature's greatest epics, a story of mythological proportions that was grounded in real life and a new way of storytelling. Melville's work, underappreciated in its time, remains as much subject to debate and interpretation as it was when he first caught the public eye with his South Seas adventure, Typee, in 1846.

Biography

Herman Melville was born in August 1, 1819, in New York City, the son of a merchant. Only twelve when his father died bankrupt, young Herman tried work as a bank clerk, as a cabin-boy on a trip to Liverpool, and as an elementary schoolteacher, before shipping in January 1841 on the whaler Acushnet, bound for the Pacific. Deserting ship the following year in the Marquesas, he made his way to Tahiti and Honolulu, returning as an ordinary seaman on the frigate United States to Boston, where he was discharged in October 1844. Books based on these adventures won him immediate success. By 1850 he was married, had acquired a farm near Pittsfield, Massachusetts (where he was the impetuous friend and neighbor of Nathaniel Hawthorne), and was hard at work on his masterpiece Moby-Dick.

Literary success soon faded; his complexity increasingly alienated readers. After a visit to the Holy Land in January 1857, he turned from writing prose fiction to poetry. In 1863, during the Civil War, he moved back to New York City, where from 1866-1885 he was a deputy inspector in the Custom House, and where, in 1891, he died. A draft of a final prose work, Billy Budd, Sailor, was left unfinished and uncollated, packed tidily away by his widow, where it remained until its rediscovery and publication in 1924.