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Great books for boys -- and girls, too

By Emily Hulme | ehulme@am-ny.com

5:04 PM EDT, April 29, 2008

Covers from the new adventure series from Penguin that is reissuing classic books for boys.

The first thing you notice are the covers: swashbuckling swordsmen, intrepid explorers and shifty looking spies in vivid colors and a retro style.

The "Great Books for Boys" series --is a collection of six titles published by Penguin Classics promoting a nostalgic sense of adventure and excitement that can get lost in this fast-paced, high-tech world. The series is inspired by "The Dangerous Book for Boys," a manual advocating a kind of dirt-eating, knee-skinning childhood that is less and less the norm.

The novels -- which include "The Lost World," by Arthur Conan Doyle; "The Prisoner of Zenda," by Anthony Hope; "Riddle of the Sands;" by Erskine Childers, "She," by H. Rider Haggard; "The Thirty-Nine Steps" by John Buchan; and "The Man Who Was Thursday," by G. K. Chesterton -- feature tales of spies, men on quests, brave new worlds, and assorted mystery and excitement. All authored by Brits just after the turn of the 20th century, they capture the flavor of a specific time in imaginative adventure literature.

"These are all drawing on the English language tradition and that was much better established in Britain than in America [in the early 1900s]," says Penguin Classics editor John Siciliano. "In America we were writing about the discovery of this new country, [but] the British were kind of inventing new worlds and new adventures. In terms of adventure stories, the Brits were really there before we were, so the classic adventure stories come from the U.K."

"The Great Books for Boys" are as much for the parents as the sons. Intended to be a source of bonding, they're being marketed as a return to old-fashioned boyhood values, a piece of the past to be passed on to the future. More than that, these stories are jolly good reads. Thrills and chills to be savored at any age.

They're classics that may have fallen by the wayside. Conan Doyle, who will be forever remembered for Sherlock Holmes, has a large body of work that has largely been forgotten; it is represented here by "The Lost World." Buchan's "The 39 Steps," currently in revival on Broadway, is known better as a Hitchcock film than a novel. This lost-to-the-mists-of-time quality gives reading these books the exciting feeling of either rediscovering an old favorite, or uncovering a hidden relic from a bygone age, depending on your frame of reference.

Also, this seeming resurrection of the "He-Man Woman Hater's Club" is more inclusive than the series title might lead you to believe. In addition to bringing together parents and their sons, these adventure tales appeal to both boys and girls.

"It's not exclusively for boys," Siciliano said. "I don't think the authors of 'The Dangerous Book for Boys' would begrudge a woman buying their book, and we feel the same way."