These works of literature do not reside just on the shelves of academia; they flourish in the eye of our imagination…will leave you awe-struck.
/b>-New York Times Book Review
THE GRAPHIC CANON(Seven Stories Press) is a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind trilogy that brings classic literatures of the world together with legendary graphic artists and illustrators. There are more than 130 illustrators represented and 190 literary works over three volumes-many newly commissioned, some hard to find-reinterpreted here for readers and collectors of all ages.
Volume 1takes us on a visual tour from the earliest literature through the end of the 1700s. Along the way, we’re treated to eye-popping renditions of the human race’s greatest epics-Gilgamesh,The Iliad,The Odyssey(in watercolors by Gareth Hinds),TheAeneid,Beowulf,andThe Arabian Nights, plus later epicsThe Divine ComedyandThe Canterbury Tales(both by legendary illustrator and graphic designer Seymour Chwast),Paradise Lost, andLe Morte D'Arthur. Two of ancient Greece’s greatest plays are adapted-the tragedyMedeaby Euripides and Tania Schrag’s uninhibited rendering of the very bawdy comedyLysistrataby Aristophanes (the text of which is still censored in many textbooks). Also included is Robert Crumb’s rarely-seen adaptation of James Boswell'sLondon Journal, filled with philosophical debate and lowbrow debauchery.
Religious literature is well-covered and well-illustrated, with the Books of Daniel and Esther from the Old Testament, Rick Geary’s awe-inspiring new rendition of the Book of Revelation from theNew Testament, theTao te Ching, Rumi’s Sufi poetry, Hinduism'sMahabharata, and the Mayan holy bookPopol Vuh, illustrated by Roberta Gregory. The Eastern canon gets its due, withThe Tale of Genji(the world’s first novel, done in full-page illustrations reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley), three poems from China’s golden age of literature lovingly drawn by pioneering underground comics artist Sharon Rudahl, theTibetan Book of the Dead, a Japanese Nohplay, and other works from Asia.
Two of Shakespeare’s greatest plays (King LearandA Midsummer Night’s Dream) and two of his sonnets are here, as are Plato'sSymposium,Gulliver’s Travels,Candide,A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Renaissance poetry of love and desire, andDon Quixotevisualized by the legendary Will Eisner.
Some unexpected twists include a Native American folktale, an Incan play, Sappho’s poetic fragments, bawdy essays by Benjamin Franklin, the love letters of Abelard and Heloise, and the decadent French classicDangerous Liaisons, as illustrated by Molly Crabapple.
The Graphic Canon, Volume 2gives us a visual cornucopia based on the wealth of literature from the 1800s. Several artists-including Maxon Crumb and Gris Grimly-present their versions of Edgar Allan Poe’s visions. The great American novelHuckleberry Finnis adapted uncensored for the first time, as Twain wrote it. The bad boys of Romanticism-Shelley, Keats, and Byron-are visualized here, and so are the Bronte sisters. We see both of Coleridge’s most famous poems- Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (the latter by British comics legend Hunt Emerson). Philosophy and science are ably represented by ink versions of Nietzsche'sThus Spake Zarathustraand Darwin'sOn the Origin of Species.
Frankenstein,Moby-Dick,Les Miserables,Great Expectations,Middlemarch,Anna Karenina,C
