This CD, with the complete text of the original books that 143
of the Classics Illustrated® comics were based on, was compiled by
Richard Seltzer.
The books themselves are in the public domain and in plain text format.
You can copy them onto your hard drive for convenience, or make an archival
copy of the CD, as backup in case of damage to the original. But the collection
and its indexes, created for your convenience, are under copyright. Please
contact us first if you are interested in making copies of this CD for
commercial purposes.
seltzer@samizdat.com
Back in the 1950s I was an avid reader and collector of Classics Illustrated
® comic books. I bought every one I could find in stores, got
a monthly subscription, and ordered everything else from the publisher
as back issues. I revered the original books honored by inclusion
-- those were the true "classics"; and I went out of my way to buy them
and read them.
About ten years ago, when I realized that the paper was deteriorating
and that the comics would all turn to dust before my grandchildren could
enjoy them, I sold the collection through Ebay. Now it finally occurred
to me that all but 26 of the original 168 classics are now in the public
domain and available in electronic form. Here I have assembled all those
onto a single CD. In the case of biographies where the comic didn't
indicate the source or author, I have chosen likely candidates. Enjoy.
On the CD itself, you can open these books by clicking on the titles
in this index page with your Web browser or a recent word processor. Here
on the Web only internal links work.
By the way, if you are interested in buying the comic books themselves,
rather than the books on which they were based, you should check Jake
Lake Productions
For details about this publishing service, check the readme
document. You can contact us at seltzer@samizdat.com,
B&R
Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132-002. 617-469-2269.
We publish plain text books (unencrypted) on CD, and we want to provide
a simple way for customers and other interested people to share their insights
into how to get the most out of this new way of reading and studying. To
do so we have set up an email discussion group at Yahoo. All are welcome
to join and to post here, but I'll manage this group in "moderated" style,
filtering messages before they go out to the whole group, to control the
volume of the messages and to make sure that they are on-topic. Tips and
information that would be helpful to people you have plain text books on
CD are welcome -- including examples of how you are using yours, suggestions
for improvement, suggestions for future CDs, and useful/interesting
texts found on the Web that should be included in future CDs. To subscribe,
go to the discussion group Web site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/plaintextbooksoncd
or send a blank email to plaintextbooksoncd-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Numbers refer to the sequence of the original series of Classic Illustrated
® comics published in the US.
1. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
2. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
3. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
4. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
5. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
6. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
7. Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
8. The Arabian Nights translated by Richard Burton (complete)
volume 1
volume 2
volume 3
volume 4
volume 5
volume 6
volume 7
volume 8
volume 9
volume 10
supplemental volume 1
supplemental volume 2
supplemental volume 3
supplemental volume 4
supplemental volume 5
supplemental volume 6
9. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
10. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
11. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
12. Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
The Headless Horseman by Washington Irving
13. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
14. Westward Ho by Charles Kingsley
15. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
16. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
17. The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper
19. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
20. The Corsican Brothers by Alexandre Dumas
21. Three Famous Mysteries
The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Flayed Hand by Guy de Maupassant
Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe
22. Pathfinder by James Fenimore Cooper
23. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
24. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
25. Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Dana
26. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
27. The Adventures of Marco Polo
Travels of Marco Polo volume 1
Travels of Marco Polo volume 2
28. Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne
29. The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
30. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
31. The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
32. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore
33. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
34. Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
35. The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
36. Typee by Herman Melville
37. The Pioneers by James Fenimore Cooper
38. The Adventures of Cellini by Benevenuto Cellini
39. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
40. Mysteries by Edgar Allan Poe
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Unparalleled Adventures of Hans Pfall
The Fall of the House of Usher
41. Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas
42. The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
43. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
44. Mysteries of Paris by Eugene Sue (not yet available)
45. Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes
46. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
47. 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne
48. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
49. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
50. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
51. The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper
52. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
53. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
54. The man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
55. Silas Marner by George Eliot
56. Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo
57. Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
58. The Prairie by James Fenimore Cooper
59. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
60. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
61. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
62. Western Stories by Bret Harte
The Luck of Roaring Camp
The Outcasts of Poker Flat
63. The Man Without a Country by Edward Everett Hale
64. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
65. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
66. The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade
67. The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter
68. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
69. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
70. The Pilot by James Fenimore Cooper
71. The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo
72. The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman
73. The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
74. Mr. Midshipman Easy by Captain Marryat
75. The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott
76. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
77. The Iliad by Homer
78. Joan of Arc [the comic book does not specify the source or author;
this is The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain]
79. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
80. White Fang by Jack London
81. The Odyssey by Homer
82. The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson
83. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
84. The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe
85. The Sea Wolf by Jack London
86. Under Two Flags by Ouida
87. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
88. Men of Iron by Howard Pyle
89. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
90. Green Mansions by W.H. Hudson
91. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
92. The Courtship of Miles Standish by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
93. Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
94. David Balfour by Robert Louis Stevenson
95. All quiet on the Western Frong by Erich Maria Remarque (still under
copyright; the author was European and died in 1970)
96. Daniel Boone [the comic book does not specify the source or the
author; this is The Life and Times of Colonel Daniel Boone by Cecil B.
Hartley]
97. King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
98. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
99. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
100. The Mutiny on the Bounty by Nordhoff and Hall (first published
in the US in 1932, hence still under copyright)
101. William Tell by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
102. The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
103. Men Against the Sea by Nordhoff and Hall (first published in the
US in 1933, hence still under copyright)
104. Bring 'Em Back Alive by Frank Buck (based on a film, not a book)
105. From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
106. Buffalo bill [the comic book does not specify the source or the
author; this is An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill by Colonel W.F. Cody]
107. King -- of the Khyber Rifles by Talbot Mundy
108. The Knights of the Round Table [the comic book does not specify
the source or the author; this is The Story of the Champions of the Round
Table by Howard Pyle]
109. Pitcairn's Island by Nordhoff and Hall (first published in the
US after 1933, hence still under copyright)
110. A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
111. The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott
112. The Adventures of Kit Carson [the comic book does not specify
the source or the author; this is The Life of Kit Carson by Edward Ellis]
113. The Forty-Five Guardsmen by Alexandre Dumas
114. Red Rover by James Fenimore Cooper
115. How I Found Livingstone by Sir Henry M. Stanley [abridged]
116. The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson
117. Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
118. Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott
119. Soldiers of Fortune by Richard Harding Davis
120. The Hurricane by Nordhoff and Hall (first published in the US
in 1936, hence still under copyright)
121. Wild Bill Hickock [the comic book does not specify the source
or the author; this is Wild Bill's Last Trail by Ned Buntline]
122. The Mutineers by Charles Boardman Hawes
123. Fang and Claw by Frank Buck (based on a film, not a book)
124. War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (still under copyright; the author
was European and died in 1946)
125. The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark (first published
in the US in 1940, hence still under copyright)
126. The Downfall by Emile Zola
127. King of the Mountains by Edmond About (not yet available)
128 Macbeth by William Shakespeare
129. Davy Crockett [the comic book does not specify the source or the
author; this is David Crocket: His Life and Adventures by John S.C. Abbott]
130. Caesar's Conquests [Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil
Wars by Julius Caesar]
131. The Covered Wagon by Emerson Hough
132. The Dark Frigate by Charles Boardman Hawes (not yet available)
133. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (still under copyright; the author
was European and died in 1946)
134. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
135. Waterloo by Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian (not yet available)
136. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
137. The Little Savage by Captain Marryat
138. A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
139. In the Reign of Terror by G.A. Henty
140. On Jungle Trails by Frank Buck (based on a film, not a book)
141 Castle Dangerous by Sir Walter Scott
142. Abraham Lincoln [the comic book does not specify the source or
the author; this is Abraham Lincoln by John T. Morse, Jr.]
volume 1
volume 2
143. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
144. The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells (still under copyright;
the author was European and died in 1946)
145. The Crisis by Winston Churchill
146. With First and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (not yet available)
147. Ben Hur by Lew Wallace
148. The Buccaneer (based on a film, not a book)
149. Off on a Comet by Jules Verne
150. The Virginian by Owen Wister
151. Won by the Sword by G.A. Henty
152. Wild Animals I Have Known by Ernest Thompson Seton
153. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells (still under copyright; the author
was European and died in 1946)
154. The Conspiracy of Pontiac by Francis Parkman (not yet available)
155. The Lion of the North by G.A. Henty
156. The Conquest of Mexico by Bernal Diaz del Castillo (not yet available)
157. Lives of the Hunted by Frank Buck (based on a film, not a book)
158. the Conspirators by Alexandre Dumas (not yet available)
160. Food of the Gods by H.G. Wells (still under copyright; the author
was European and died in 1946)
161. Cleopatra by H. Rider Haggard
162. Robur the Conqueror by Jules Verne
163. The Master of the World by Jules Verne
164. The Cossack Chief [Taras Bulba] by Nikolai Gogol
165. The Queen's Necklace by Alexandre Dumas
166. Tigers and Traitors by Jules Verne (not yet available)
167. Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
168. In Freedom's Cause by G.A. Henty
Intended for use with Windows and LinuxPCs and recent Macs (OS X),
this CD with 142 books, is available for $29 at our online store.
http://samizdat.stores.yahoo.net/illustrated.html
How to install
and use the free ReadPlease software included on this CD
Click here if you would like to install this software. When you click
on that link, you will be asked wheter you want to save it on your computer
or just run it. Choose Save -- it will only take about 10 Mbytes; so choose
Save. Then select which version you want to install and the directory that
you'd like to put it in. When the rapid, automatic installation is done,
you will be able to open ReadPlease by clicking on an icon on your desktop.
When running ReadPlease, click on File, then Open, and browse to the
texts you are interested on the CD (or any other text file you have). Click
on Play and it will start "reading" the book aloud to you. Highlight a
chunk of text (of any size) with your browser and then click on Selection,
and it will read the text you selected. Controls in the right column allow
you to change the speed of the voice (with a sliding bar), change the font
size (with a sliding bar), and switch among four different voices (with
the right and left arrows).
When you run ReadPlease, you see the text, with yellow highlighting
moving from one word to the next, while you hear that same text. And you
can at any time edit the text in the video window. Just position your cursor,
click you mouse, and type whatever you like -- for instance, annotation
or marks to show where you last stopped reading. Then save the edited file
on your hard drive.
Please keep in mind that ReadPlease is their software not ours. They
are the experts on it. They have even better versions with even clearer,
more natural voices, which they sell. You can listen to samples at their
Web site www.readplease.com, where you can also see detailed help files.
And you can contact them at: ReadPlease Corporation, 121 Cherry Ridge Road,
Thunder Bay, ON, Canada P7G 1A7. Phone: 807-474-7702
Tips for using/enjoying the texts on this CD:
The easiest way to get started is to click on My Computer, then on your
CD drive, then on index.html. (That should bring you to here, in Word or
your Web browser, or WordPad or Notepad, depending on your computer's setup.)
From the index, click on an individual work to see the full text in
your browser or in Word. Click "Back" in your browser to return here.
Use the "find" function in your browser (under Edit/Find in both Netscape
and IE) to find any word or phrase within a document.
When you stop reading, jot down the last phrase (a unique set of words)
so you can search for that the next time you want to read and easily find
the spot where you left off.
If you just want to read and if you have a large screen, use your browser
and under View increase the type size to meet your taste.
If you just want to read and you have a small screen, try using WordPad
or Word.
If you want to take notes while you read, first save the file on your
hard drive, then open it in WordPad or Word, enter your notes with the
text (making them distinctive with bold or italic or by enclosing them
in brackets] as you go along, and save the entire file, with those changes,
when you are done.
If you use Word, you can Select All [under Edit], and modify the font
and type size (to make the letters larger and easier to read) [under Format
and Font], and save the files on your hard drive [under File, Save As]
with whatever changes you have made (including notes you made while reading).
Note regarding copyright: On our "Classic Collections"
CDs, we include works published in the US before 1923, works from Australia
and
Canada when the author died 50 years or more ago, and works from the European
Union (including the United Kingdom and Ireland) when the author died 70
years or more ago. NB -- Due to The European Union's extension of copyright
by 20 years to 70 years after the death of the author many works which
had been in the public domain under the previous law are now once again
under copyright. Hence we are unable to include on our CDs some popular
writers whose works are still readily available over the Internet.
This site is published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West
Roxbury, MA 02132-002. 617-469-2269 seltzer@samizdat.com
Book
collections on CD and DVD. A library for the price of a book.