Kids in the 1950s weren't blessed with as many diversions as today's children have but the ones we did have were very much appreciated by us all. Television, then in its infancy, was not without its attractions; children's shows such as "Howdy Doody," "Zorro" and The Mickey Mouse Club" and many more are all still fondly remembered. Many adult TV programs are warmly regarded too. Elsewhere, the newspapers had their popular comic strips but it was their cousins, the comic books, that probably surpassed them in popularity. Today, collecting comics books is a broad hobby, enjoyed by many children of the fifties. Most comic books, despite their nostalgic appeal, were not terribly erudite, but we former kids who enjoyed them then are sentimental about them today. There was, however, one group of comic books that were somewhat erudite: Classics Illustrated, a series of comic book adaptations of classic novels of the past. Classics Illustrated published comic books for about 30 years, from 1941 to 1971, before slipping into oblivion. In that time they published some 169 issues plus a number of other educational books that depicted topics in science, history and life. The 169 issue series featured adaptations, in the comic book format, of many great novels of the past, retelling the stories as faithfully as was possible. And, at the conclusion of the story, the reader was then encouraged to visit his or her library to obtain and read the original book, something I did a number of times. All types of literature were adapted; all were well rendered; all are fondly recalled today. Unlike any other comic book publisher, Classics Illustrated printed and reprinted almost all of their titles again and again throughout the period making them constantly available to new generations of children.
I have also added a separate series that was published from the late fifties until well into the sixties called The World Around Us. This educational series of comic books in most cases featured real people, places and events as well as attempted to foretell other things such as space exploration. It was always excellent.
I recently acquired all of the Classics Illustrated comic books in a computer ready format. They were in CBR format, a format that has come to be the defacto standard for sharing images of comic books. In the pages linked to this page, I am listing, showing and offering downloads of each of the 169 regular Classics Illustrated comics. I have created three different views for finding and downloading titles. One interface accesses the titles in the order in which they were published, from the first to the last. Second, there is a list of the books, accessing them by their titles, in alphabetical order. Lastly, there is a third means of accessing them, by the names of their sources' writers, listing the titles by the authors' names in alphabetical order with pull down menus for those authors for whom more than one title was adapted. This was a lot of work but it was also a lot of fun. Take a look and have some fun yourself reliving (if you're old enough) the glorious past of great books of literature presented in a graphic format with fine art and story telling. These things are a treasure from the past!
