Tom Brown's School Days - a Classics Illustrated comic adaptation

Sometimes I stumble across the most unusual finds while browsing antique malls, flea markets, and used book stores.  I've come across a number of book series that I have never heard of before, or found some rather off-beat comic books that pique my interest.  Well, on a recent trip to Kentucky to visit my father, I was wandering through Peddler's Mall (a chain of flea markets) when I happened upon an old issue of Classics Illustrated that gave me pause.  For those who may not know (since the series is not exactly as popular as it once was), Classics Illustrated was a series of comic books that gave readers some of the "greatest stories by the World's Great Authors" (or so the by-line said) in abridged, comic book form.  You can find pretty much any true classic published in this series - from Moby Dick to Rip Van Winkle to Alice in Wonderland to The Red Badge of Courage, and even a large number of lesser known books, such as The Spy, Lord Jim, The Hurricane, Kit Carson, and so many more.  Now, as a kid, I was never really interested in these comics, as I much preferred to read the actual book and get the whole story.  Even as an adult, the only Classics Illustrated comic I own (at least, up until I bought this one) is The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, which I purchased when I was doing a paper in college on the various comic book adaptations of that particular book.  Well, while I was combing through a box of comics at the Peddler Mall, I came across this particular book - and based on the title and the cover art, I knew I could not pass it up.

Prior to this, I had never heard of Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes.  The title alone was similar enough to any number of children's series books from back in the early part of the 20th century to catch my eye, but the cover, sporting a group of young men playing football, only clinched the deal.  I was pretty confident that this had to be an adaptation of yet another children's series book of which I had no knowledge.  So, I splurged the $2.00 to buy the comic and brought it home to read.  

Tom Brown's School Days tells the story of - you guessed it! - young Tom Brown, who was a spirited boy from the very beginning, and when the local school could not seem to give young Tom what he needed, his father decides to send him to a Rugby school for boys.  Once there, Tom quickly makes friends with an upper class boy named Harry East, who shows Tom the ropes.  He proves his worth at playing football and doesn't flinch when he's "initiated" by some of the older boys, and ultimately puts a bully in his place, freeing himself and some of the other younger boys from the oppression of some of the upperclassmen.  However, Tom was not exactly the picture of good behavior.  He and his friends caused their fare share of trouble, to the point where the headmasters decided something needed to be done to put Tom back on the right track.  Enter: George Arthur - a poor little fellow whose father had died, has no siblings, and is a pale, thin young boy.  Tom takes George under his wing and protects him from the antics of the older boys.  As the years pass, George grows stronger, Tom grows more stable and confident, and by the end of the tale, Tom has ended his term at Rugby and is preparing to return to London and begin his new life as an adult.

While there is no "mystery" at all in this story, which is what I normally enjoy in a children's book, the story definitely reads very much like the type of children's books that were written back in the early part of the 1900s.  It turns out, though, that Hughes actually wrote the book in 1857, and the story is set in the 1830s (which I did realize while reading the comic, as it does not indicate anywhere in the story what year it is).  The story is apparently based on the author's own experiences, with Tom being based on the author's brother and George Arthur believed to be based on Arthur Penrhyn Stanley.  The book has had both film and television adaptations (as well as this comic book adaptation), and it also had one sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford.  Thus, while it turns out Tom Brown's School Days was not actually a children's "series" book (unless you count two books as a "series"), it did turn out to be a quaint little read, and interested me enough that I am now hunting down the book version and its sequel so I can read the full story.

RATING:  7 bowls of curds out of 10 for opening my eyes to an even older children's "series" that I never knew existed!