the underwear drawer

better than cliff notes

When I was a kid maybe a little older than Cal's age, I had this set of "illustrated classics"-- pocket-sized paperbacks with abridged versions of famous works of literature. I really thought these books were awesome. Some of my favorites that I remember vividly were "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," "Swiss Family Robinson," "The Time Machine," and "War of the Worlds." In other words, books that I probably would think are a total snooze now. My tastes run more towards contemporary literature nowadays (anything written after World War II usually is suspect in my book--I know this makes me a Philistine but I'm just being honest, just like I'm being honest when I tell you that I am a girl and I thought that "Pride and Prejudice" was SUPER BORING) but when I was a kid, I just remember being captivated by those illustrated classics.

I had no idea that they were abridged versions at the time, but somehow the fact that they were abridged made them better than the originals--like they cut through all the wordy embellishments and baroque flourishes and reduced the books down to pure scene and plot. That along with the pictures just made them fantastic to read. I know it's probably telling that I was the kind of kid who'd prefer snuggling on the couch with a stack of books and some old Halloween candy than--well, pretty much anything else in life--but really, I have very fond memories of those books.

Cal's been reading a lot more these days, and so lately, I've been trying to locate some of those old paperbacks. Not at my parents house--they moved since I was a kid, so any books from that era are probably long gone, sentimental value or not. But there is Amazon.com and eBay, after all. Still, I can't find the same versions of those illustrated classics. And believe me, I have looked. I found books in the same vein, in that they are classics, and they are illustrated--but no, I want the same books. EVERYTHING MUST BE THE SAME. I know, it's a disease. My child must enjoy what I enjoyed. (Next up: a Wilson Phillips CD.)

This is what I remember about the illustrated classics that I read.


1.) They were paperbacks.

2.) They were small. I want to say 4" x 5". You could cram one in your back pocket.

3.) There was a black-and-white picture every other page. Left side was the picture, right side was the text. Usually the picture was captioned by a pull quote from the text. Like, "The Swiss Family Robinson sailed to the island on a boat out of sawed-open barrels!"

4.) They came in a big box set of, like, 12 or 24 books.

5.) I think the publisher imprint was Moby? Or something like that. Anyway, there was a whale on the cover.


One more think about the illustrated classics series from my childhood is that I credit them for making me seem smarter than I actually am. For instance, to this day, I have not read the real versions of "Great Expectations" or "Little Women," but I know a lot about the plot of these books from the illustrated classics. You know, like how Jo sold her hair and how Ms. Haversham stopped all the clocks in her house and still wore her wedding dress around until she caught on fire. Now if only they had one about "The Portrait of Dorian Gray," so I would know something more about this painting under the bed that everyone keeps talking about.




Edited to add: Woo! Found some on eBay! Mission: Nerd Kid 2.0 complete!