mercredi 8 mars 2006
That one publisher
I forget where I found this link to the 100 Best First Lines from Novels but I loved going through it! Ever since my English Lit course a few years ago in college, I've come to enjoy classic British literature the most. For that course, I had to read the following (publisher in parenthesis):
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Dover)
- Silas Marner by George Eliot (Penguin)
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (Wordsworth)
- Howards End by E.M. Forster
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (Wordsworth)
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (Wordsworth)
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (Wordsworth)
- The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (Wordsworth)
- A David Copperfield book though I don't recall which
Whenever I'm at a Chapters bookstore, I always browse through the bargain literature section to see what else I can add to my collection. The problem however lies in the publisher of the book. Because I'm such a stickler for uniformity, I would appreciate having all of my books come from the same publisher. My favourite is Wordsworth Editions, mostly for their excellent endnotes, their price and their appearance (covers do count). Yet most Chapters don't always have the Wordsworth book I'm looking for (Kim, help!) and I'm unable to buy these books online because they're considered bargain books and therefore, temporarily unable to order.
I don't like Penguin as much because they can be about 2 to 3 times more expensive than Wordsworth and Dover is actually less expensive but I don't enjoy them as much (I don't have a book on me so I can't relay why). I have found a partial solution in that Wordsworth has all of their books available for purchase on Amazon UK for 1.99 pounds (which comes out to 4 dollars Canadian more or less) but their overseas shipping rates are exorbitant! I shouldn't be surprised. So now I'm back to my dilemma - having to scour bookstores at random times to see if they have the elusive books I'm in pursuit of from the one publisher I'm after. I'm looking forward to the day when the majority of my book collection can look consistent :)
Update: I went to a Chapters today and they didn't have any books from Wordsworth at all! There is only one other store location in my city, so I really hope I'll find something in the bargain literature/fiction section there!
Libellés : books