WARNING: It is entirely possible that I am mixing memories. However, I have culled down enough to believe that the description I am giving is accurate.
These books were abridged versions of the classics. They were smaller than normal books, perhaps the length of a checkbook, the width of two checkbooks, and the thickness of a pack of cigarettes.
The left side of the page was the story, and the right side of the page was a black-and-white illustration.
I believe the name of the series was done in small letters and surrounded by some basic scrollwork.
The only other thing I got is that it wasn’t “Great Illustrated Classics.”
Can anybody help me out? This is going to eat at me for DAYS.
The style sounds like Big Little Books, which were very popular in their day. But Big Little Books were mostly based on licensed characters, although there were a few based on public domain classics. Here’s a complete listing of Big Little Books.
Humorist James Lileks satirizes some later licensed Big Little Books on his website- this Spider-Man one, featuring giant pizza and a giant scale as a villain (among other things), is especially hilarious.
I had the Little Women one. The pictures of Meg showed her with some kind of fucked-up bouffant hairdo, and Laurie seemed to have kind of a white guy afro. Mr. Behr looked like Grizzly Adams. The only other thing I remember about it was that my mom bought it at Woolworths. This would have been late 70’s-early 80s-ish.