Book filter: picking a good "edition" of a book.

October 27, 2020 9:13 AM

There are two books i want to buy, and i am being particular about the quality of each, but for different reasons. How do you decide which edition of a book meets your criteria, especially when shopping online?

First, I want a paperback edition of Marcus Aurelius' meditations. There are many. I would like excellent paper, lovely clear print and a large format (but not large print) edition. Do you simply sift through the online editions, or is there a publishing house that's your go-to for quality?

Secondly, I am looking for an edition of Alice in Wonderland for my granddaughter. How to find one with lovely illustrations and beautiful paper?

Both of these books have been printed so many times that I am overwhelmed by trying to find exactly what I have in mind.

posted by OHenryPacey to Shopping (8 answers total)

For the Alice, Barnes and Noble has a lovely hardback with the Tenniel illustrations.
posted by basalganglia at 9:25 AM on October 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Get The Annotated Alice. It's nice and big has Through the Looking Glass, too, and she can read the books now and then all the annotations when she's a bit older. I read it over and over and over and it grew with me. I used it in AP English for a poetry group project. Oh, and I used it again at a "dress as a literary character" halloween party in the 90s. I came as the caterpillar on the mushroom with a hookah, and my shoes were Tenniel-style worn-out down-at-the-heel flats, poking out from the bottom of the mushroom--so not technically in the illustration of the caterpillar, in which the mushroom is unshod, but rhyming with all the shoes worn by various other wonderland characters. I won the costume contest because of those shoes. Which brings me to my most important advice which is that if you get some other Alice besides The Annotated Alice, fine, but there is no question about the illustrations: Tenniel or nothing.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:29 AM on October 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

I am very fond of Mervyn Peake's illustrations for Alice. That version was long out of print, but was re-issued in a nice hardback edition by Bloomsbury about 20 years ago - it's fairly easy to find used copies online.

That's a favourite for me because I love Mervyn Peake, so I'd already been looking / hoping for it long before it was re-printed. I don't have any particular feelings about Marcus Aurelius, so in that case I'd be opening physical copies in actual bookshops, and getting a feel for the paper, typeface, legibility, binding, etc etc. Or the nearest equivalent that's available if you can't get to an actual bookshop. If I didn't find anything that was obviously better, I'd probably default to a Penguin Classic.
posted by rd45 at 9:42 AM on October 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

I remember loving The Annotated Alice as a teenager -- but if memory serves, Martin Gardner includes some references that may not be appropriate for a young child. If that's the edition you choose, then you may want to look through it before passing it on to your granddaughter, depending on her age.
posted by yankeefog at 9:51 AM on October 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Another consideration for the Alice: The nicer editions are often hardcover and heavier. Preferences vary, but my fond memories of curling up with a book as a child generally involved beat-up paperbacks, not volumes that had to be placed on a table.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:26 AM on October 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

You don't mention, apropos Aurelius, the quality of the translation. For me, not reading Latin, the quotation would trump all other considerations.
posted by tmdonahue at 1:28 PM on October 27, 2020

I bought a copy of Meditations for a friend recently and had to go to the publisher's site and bookshop.org because Amazon refused to show me the correct paperback edition. Modern Library Classics, translated by Gregory Hays. If you do want to use Amazon, check the ISBN before ordering.

Yayoi Kusama has a completely charming version of Alice in Wonderland.
posted by betweenthebars at 4:17 PM on October 27, 2020

Strong disrecommendation for The Annotated Alice. Annotated books in general don’t make good gifts for a first-time reader because of spoilers/assumption you’ve already read the book (also, the footnotes often take up more space than the actual story).

The Annotated Alice in particular has very age-inappropriate descriptions of pedophilia. See Discussion of Dodgson's sexual preferences for an idea of what’s there. Not just a few mentions, Gardner brings it up constantly. The Annotated Alice is great for adult fans, but it's really not meant for children.
posted by mbrubeck at 6:13 PM on October 28, 2020 [2 favorites]