The Graphic Canon, Volume 2 gives us a visual cornucopia based on the wealth of literature from the 1800s. Several artistsÑincluding Maxon Crumb and Gris GrimlyÑpresent their versions of Edgar Allan PoeÕs visions. The great American novel Huckleberry Finn is adapted uncensored for the first time, as Twain wrote it. The bad boys of RomanticismÑShelley, Keats, and ByronÑare visualized here, and so are the Bront‘ sisters. We see both of ColeridgeÕs most famous poems: ÒKubla KhanÓ and ÒThe Rime of the Ancient MarinerÓ (the latter by British comics legend Hunt Emerson). Philosophy and science are ably represented by ink versions of NietzscheÕsThus Spake Zarathustra and DarwinÕs On the Origin of Species.

Frankenstein, Moby-Dick, Les MisŽrables, Great Expectations, Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment (a hallucinatory take on the pivotal murder scene), ThoreauÕs Walden (in spare line art by John Porcellino of King-Cat Comics fame), ÒThe Drunken BoatÓ by Rimbaud, Leaves of Grass by Whitman, and two of Emily DickinsonÕs greatest poems are all present and accounted for. John Coulthart has created ten magnificent full-page collages that tell the story of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. And Pride and Prejudice has never looked this splendiferous!

This volume is a special treat for Lewis Carroll fans. Dame Darcy puts her unmistakable stamp onÑwhat else?Ñthe Alice books in a new 16-page tour-de-force, while a dozen other artists present their versions of the most famous characters and moments from Wonderland. ThereÕs also a gorgeous silhouetted telling of ÒJabberwocky,Ó and MahendraÕs SinghÕs surrealistic take on ÒThe Hunting of the Snark.Ó

Curveballs in this volume include fairy tales illustrated by the untameable S. Clay Wilson, a fiery speech from freed slave Frederick Douglass (rendered in stark black and white by Seth Tobocman), a letter on reincarnation from Flaubert, the Victorian erotic classic Venus in Furs, the drug classic The Hasheesh Eater, and silk-screened illustrations for the ghastly childrenÕs classic Der Struwwelpeter. Among many other canonical works.