William B. Jones, Jr.

WILLIAM B. JONES JR. is the author of CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED: A CULTURAL HISTORY, SECOND EDITION (McFarland, 2011); editor of and contributor to ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON RECONSIDERED: NEW CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES (McFarland, 2003); and co-editor of A SPECTRUM READER (August House, 1991). The first edition of the CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED book was well-received on its publication in 2002 and led to invitations to speak at the Library of Congress and at various literary and popular-culture venues. The SECOND EDITION is greatly expanded, with revised text, additional chapters, new interviews, enhanced appendices, and more than 340 black-and-white and color illustrations -- many unique to the updated volume.

Since 2003, Jones has written introductions and author biographies for the Toronto-based Jack Lake Productions revived series of CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED ("Great Expectations," "Hamlet," "The Aeneid," etc.), CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED JUNIOR ("The Pied Piper," "The King of the Golden River," "The Wizard of Oz," etc.), CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED SPECIAL ISSUES ("The Ten Commandments," "The War Between the States," "The Rough Rider," etc.), and THE WORLD AROUND US ("Pirates," "The Crusades," "The Vikings," etc.). Some of his introductions have appeared in British CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED editions and in translation in Croatia and Indonesia.

Jones has also scripted readers' theatre performance pieces and radio plays, including an authorized National Endowment for the Arts "BIG READ" adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY. He has spoken at international academic conferences on Robert Louis Stevenson and Jules Verne and has published articles in the JOURNAL OF STEVENSON STUDIES, VERNIANA (http:/​/​www.verniana.org/​volumes/​04/​HTML/​WilliamJones.html), ICONS OF AMERICAN COMICS, and THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN. Jones lives in Little Rock, Arkansas; has two sons, Will and Stephen; and is married to award-winning theatre costume designer Yslan Hicks.