Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 20, 1993 TAG: 9306230273
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by PAXTON DAVIS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
KIDNAPPED. By Robert Lewis Stevenson. Illustrated by N.C. Wyeth. Running Press, Philadelphia. $16.95.
One of the thrills of a boyhood of the 1920s and `30s was a Christmas gift of the Scribners Classics boy's books, most of them illustrated by the noted painter N.C. Wyeth. Most memorably, perhaps, there was "Treasure Island," but "The Black Arrow," "Kidnaped" and "Robin Hood" were treasured as well; and my own favorite for years was Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans," which gave me an idea of Indians I hold to this day.
In recent years Scribners has been re-issuing the old favorites in bright new facsimile editions. Wyeth's painted illustrations were re-photographed and engraved, their original colors restored, and the texts remained intact. They were as popular with my generation as we neared the grave as they'd been fifty years ago and more, and it may even be that some youngsters discovered them too.
Now here they appear in still another facsimile edition, uncut and unchanged, though the jackets have been slightly updated, and they are, I believe, a few dollars cheaper than the Scribners editions of the 1980s. But these are the authentic thing, in any case, handsomely printed and bound, and I recommend them wholeheartedly to boys (and maybe to girls) whose fantasies of knights and derring-do remain strong.
Paxton Davis's most recent book is `A Boy No More.'
by CNB