Rank:
12964th, it has 4.6K monthly / 9.8K total views.
Authors:
Russ kick
Genres:
Comic
,
Shoujo(G)
,
Shounen(B)
,
Anthology
Translated language:
English
Summary:
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 1 takes 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), The Aeneid, Beowulf, and The Arabian Nights, plus later epics The Divine Comedy and The Canterbury Tales (both by legendary illustrator and graphic designer Seymour Chwast), Paradise Lost, and Le Morte D'Arthur. Two of ancient Greece's greatest plays are adapted—the tragedy Medea by Euripides and Tania Schrag’s uninhibited rendering of the very bawdy comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes (the text of which is still censored in many textbooks). Also included is Robert Crumb’s rarely-seen adaptation of James Boswell’s London 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 the New Testament, the Tao te Ching, Rumi’s Sufi poetry, Hinduism’s Mahabharata, and the Mayan holy book Popol Vuh, illustrated by Roberta Gregory. The Eastern canon gets its due, with The 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, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a Japanese Noh play, and other works from Asia.
Two of Shakespeare’s greatest plays (King Lear and A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and two of his sonnets are here, as are Plato’s Symposium, Gulliver’s Travels, Candide, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Renaissance poetry of love and desire, and Don Quixote visualized by the legendary Will Eisner.
Some unexpected twists in this volume 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 classic Dangerous Liaisons, as illustrated by Molly
Crabapple.
Edited by Russ Kick, The Graphic Canon is an extraordinary collection that will continue with Volume 2: "Kubla Khan" to the Bronte Sisters to The Picture of Dorian Gray in Summer 2012, and Volume 3: From Heart of Darkness to Hemingway to Infinite Jest in Fall 2012. A boxed set of all three volumes will also be published in Fall 2012.
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Chapters (47)
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Volume 1 Chapter 47
: Gulliver's Travels
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77
33 hours ago
Volume 1 Chapter 46
: Paradise Lost
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91
61 hours ago
Volume 1 Chapter 45
: Forgive Us Our Trespasses
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107
99 hours ago
Volume 1 Chapter 44
: To His Coy Mistress
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106
6 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 43
: The Flea
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148
11 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 42
: Sonnet 20
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150
12 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 41
: Sonnet 18
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165
14 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 40
: A Midsummer Night's Dream
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422
23 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 39
: The Faerie Queene
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395
24 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 38
: Journey to the West
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425
25 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 37
: Hot Sun, Cool Fire
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346
26 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 36
: The visions of St. Teresa of Avila
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405
28 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 35
: Popol Vuh
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320
29 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 34
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327
31 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 33
: Outlaws of the Walter Margin
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312
32 days ago
Appu Ollantay
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320
33 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 31
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34 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 30
: The Canterbury Tales
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294
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Volume 1 Chapter 29
: The Last Ballad
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327
38 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 28
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334
39 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 27
: The Inferno
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331
41 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 26
: The Divine Comedy
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312
44 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 25
: Poems
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317
46 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 24
: The Woman with Two Coyntes
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324
47 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 23
: "The Fisherman and the Genie"
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475
48 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 22
: "O nobilissima viriditas"
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322
50 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 21
: The Letters of Heloise and Abelard
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359
51 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 20
: Strangers on a Train
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391
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Volume 1 Chapter 19
: The Tale of Genji
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402
53 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 18
: Beowulf
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378
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Volume 1 Chapter 17
: Three Tang Poems
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405
57 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 16
: The Book of Revelation
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413
58 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 15
: Aeneid
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324
59 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 14
: On the Nature of Things
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362
61 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 13
: The Book of Daniel
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419
64 days ago
Analects and Other Writings
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384
65 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 11
: Mahabharata
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405
67 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 10
: Tao Te Ching
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420
68 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 9
: Symposium
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450
69 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 8
: The Book of Esther
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20
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426
71 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 7
: Lysistrata
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424
73 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 6
: Medea
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433
74 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 5
: Sappho poem fragments
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420
75 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 4
: The Odyssey
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536
77 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 3
: The Iliad
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564
78 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 2
: Coyote and the Pebbles
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473
79 days ago
Volume 1 Chapter 1
: The Epic of Gilgamesh
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80 days ago