Jim Hodges Classic Literature

The year is 1659. You’ve been stranded on a desert island. How would you survive? Stay for 28 years, deal with cannibals, heartfelt spiritual awakenings, mutineers, goats, crops and human visitations, and you have one of the most widely published books in all history, Robinson Crusoe, often credited as the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. Before the end of its first year of publication in 1719, the book had already run through four editions. Join Robinson Crusoe, and his man, Friday, on an amazing physical and spiritual island adventure you will never forget.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle is the classic tale of the legendary bandit of England, who stole from the conniving rich to give to the poor. Join Robin Hood and Little John, Allan A Dale, Friar Tuck, and Maid Marion as they face off against the nasty Sheriff of Nottingham. In these medieval days of bows and arrows and county fairs, Robin Hood and his merry band of outlaws are beloved by all the common men, and live a happy life in Sherwood Forest.

One day in the early 1870’s, Jules Verne read that with the transportation options then available, a traveler could go entirely around the world in 90 days. That was all this incredibly gifted and far-seeing author needed to hear, and he immediately began writing one of his most famous works, Around the World in 80 Days! Before he got back to his apartment, Phileas Fogg and his valet Passepartout were already half-way around the world…in his mind anyway! This story, part travelogue, part suspense novel, was serialized in a local French newspaper, Le Temps, in 1872, and the circulation of that paper soared as people couldn’t wait for the next exciting chapter of this incredible adventure novel.

A huge storm hurls a ship against the rocks with the force of a hurricane. A father, mother and their four sons, abandoned by their now drowned crew, must carve out a new life for themselves on an uncharted island. Join them as they learn how to survive while battling the forces of nature. As the father says – “It was written for the instruction and amusement of my children. Children are, on the whole, very much alike everywhere, and you four lads fairly represent multitudes. It will make me happy to think that my simple narrative may lead some of these to observe…how good and pleasant a thing it is when brethren dwell together in unity, under the eye of parental love.”

Most people are unaware that Mark Twain spent over a decade researching Saint Joan of Arc and wrote what he considered to be his greatest work – Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc – originally published in Harpers Magazine in 1895 as chapters attributed to the fictitious author Sieur Louis de Conte. When the public found out that Twain was actually the author, many were suspicious, thinking Twain was perpetrating some kind of a joke. Twain’s biographer Albert Paine defends Twain saying it is actually his greatest writing: “Considered from every point of view, Joan of Arc is Mark Twain’s supreme literary expression, the loftiest, the most delicate, the most luminous example of his work.”

This classic story follows King Arthur and his knights as they navigate a world of battles, quests, and betrayals, shaping the destiny of Camelot. From Arthur’s rise to the throne to the trials of knights like Sir Pellias and Sir Gawain, each tale reveals the weight of duty and the cost of honor. In the face of treachery and impossible challenges, their actions define a legacy where courage speaks louder than words.

Treasure maps! Pirates! Double crossings and ships at sea! Treasure Island, the adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, is the swash-buckling tale of “buccaneers and buried gold”, universally known for its atmosphere, characters and action, mostly focused on the quintessential pirate, the unforgettable Long John Silver. You will love this story!

Harriet Tubman was born a slave. She and her brothers, Ben and Henry, escaped from slavery on September 17, 1849. When her brothers later decided to return to slavery, she followed, but not for long for she soon escaped again. Once free, she brought refugees from slavery in Maryland to freedom in Canada. In the fall of 1851, Tubman returned for the first time since her escape to find her husband, John. She once declared “I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to – liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.” She and uncounted others crossed the Suspension Bridge in Buffalo into Canada to set themselves free. Names and details about most freedom seekers remain unknown. Their safety lay in secrecy. Tubman personally led about 70 people to freedom.

Enter the world of a slave, with all the pathos, brutal honesty, and striving of the heart to breathe free. Frederick Douglass was born in slavery in Talbot County, Maryland. During service to masters cruel and kind, he nevertheless learned to read and write. After suffering whippings, hunger, heat, cold, and grueling labor, he escaped from slavery in 1838. In 1841 he addressed an Anti-Slavery Society convention and spoke so eloquently that they immediately employed him as an agent. He was such an impressive orator, numerous persons doubted if he had ever been a slave. In response, he wrote this, his first autobiography.