Grand Tales Gloriously Told: The Scribner Illustrated Classics

Off the coast of some nameless island, a tall ship swings at anchor. Grim men armed with pistols and cutlasses swagger about the deck. They give way to the one-legged man with the big smile and the parrot on his shoulder. No one doubts he is the most dangerous of them all. High above, from the main-mast flies the skull-and-crossbones banner--the Jolly Roger. You know this ship, these men, and the jolly killer who leads them; and chances are you became aquatinted through a Scribner Illustrated Classic.

Charles Scribner and Sons was already an established publishing firm when the decision was made to release a new series of classic stories for children. These would be handsome books bound in black cloth with pictorial covers and profusely illustrated with rich full-color plates printed on glossy paper. The first story chosen for the series was Robert Louis Stevenson's TREASURE ISLAND, and the artist chosen to illustrate it was a young student of Howard Pyle's Brandywine School, N. C. Wyeth.

Wyeth was just coming into his own as an artist when he received Scribner's commission to illustrate TREASURE ISLAND Howard Pyle admonished his students to live the picture, become part of the canvas. Wyeth's pirates and sea-dogs, therefore, breathed with authenticity. One can almost hear the menacing tap, tap, tap of Blind Pew's cane on the cobblestones outside the Admiral Benbow Inn. Before you, villains and heroes stand larger than life against tropic skies, exchanging brave deeds and skullduggery. And you the reader, along with young Jack Hawkins, pull the trigger that kills the mutineer Israel Hands, even as his dagger goes whistling past your ear.

The success of TREASURE ISLAND assured that the relationship Wyeth had with Scribner's would continue. Wyeth provided illustrations for Charles Kingsley's WESTWARD HO, Stevenson's KIDNAPPED, and THE BLACK ARROW, and Sidney Lanier's THE BOY’S KING ARTHUR, and other titles.. Wyeth painted knights and their ladies, Scottish lairds and rebels, patriots and brigands, frontiersmen and Indians, bringing to vivid life the characters on the printed page. Other publishing companies, prompted by Scribner's success, brought out illustrated classics of their own, copying the formula that Scribner's perfected; good rousing stories that have challenged imaginations for generations coupled with art work at once both romantic and realistic. Until the advent of the movie screen, a Scribner Classic was the closest thing to being there.

Now at C. Dickens Fine, Rare and Collectible Books, many of the best of the Scribner Illustrated Classics wait to enthrall you again with those grand old rollicking tales. Go ahead, open the covers. Draw the sword from the stone with young Arthur or explore Jules Verne's MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. Just don't be surprised if you have to duck a sword thrust or two while in the background you hear the voice of Cap'n Flint squawking out "Pieces of Eight! Pieces of Eight!"

Copyright 1996 - 2001 C. Dickens Fine, Rare and Collectible Books, Atlanta, Georgia