Point us towards some sweet matchy books

December 23, 2012 5:03 PM

My sister and I like matchy books: works by a single author or in a thematic series in new, nice, editions. Preferably hardcover, preferably freshly typeset, preferably authoritative and not decorative.

To kick things off: the Overlook Press' P.G. Wodehouse editions and the Grove Centenary Beckett are the sort of thing I'm thinking of. We are aware of Library of America.

posted by silby to Media & Arts (12 answers total)

Response by poster: Just realized I did not explicitly put a question in this question. The question is: what are some sweet editions of this ilk that you can point us to?
posted by silby at 5:06 PM on December 23, 2012

There's the Penguin Hardcover Classics series, which includes sets of works by Austen and Dickens.

The Lord of the Rings Millennium Edition is a nice hardcover set, which breaks the books up into 6 volumes, as Tolkien intended them to be presented. It was published in 1999, however, and is kind of expensive in new condition.

Then there's the Folio Society's Letterpress Shakespeare.
posted by jedicus at 5:25 PM on December 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

I was about to make suggestions, then realized that I lacked a price point. I mean, do you want to drop $2K for the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels, or do you want something less likely to induce immediate bankruptcy?
posted by thomas j wise at 5:25 PM on December 23, 2012

Sharp new editions of Ralph Ellison's work.
posted by scratch at 5:33 PM on December 23, 2012

Folio Society? Some are single books, but some are sets. If you don't want to spend that much, look for Folio Society editions on Abe Books.
posted by AnnaRat at 6:34 PM on December 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

Tartarus Press does this for some relatively obscure horror/supernatural fiction authors, e.g. Arthur Machen and M. P. Shiel. And Haffner Press does it for similarly obscure SF pulp fiction authors, e.g. Edmond Hamilton, Leigh Brackett, and Jack Williamson. Since you say hardcover is only a preference and not an absolute requirement, I'll also mention the Melville House Art of the Novella, Contemporary Art of the Novella, and Neversink series.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:32 PM on December 23, 2012

Melville House publishes some pretty editions of short stories.
posted by shesdeadimalive at 9:55 PM on December 23, 2012

Oxford publishes a nice set of Jane Austen.
posted by OmieWise at 3:55 AM on December 24, 2012

I thought these translations of Proust done a few years ago were really nice.
posted by bluebelle at 7:03 AM on December 24, 2012

Yeah, be careful about the Proust, the last two volumes are not available in the new translations in the US. You can get them from Amazon UK, but it's a different set, which is not as handsome.
posted by OmieWise at 2:51 PM on December 24, 2012

Patrick O'Brian, The Complete Aubrey/Maturin Novels - the problem being that the thing was not re-edited and there are errors.

A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (4 Volume Set)

Complete Diary of Samuel Pepys ed Robert Latham is magnificent if you can get a hold of it

And of course, the complete Memoirs of Casanova translated by William Trask
posted by BWA at 5:32 PM on December 24, 2012

This is one of my prized library possessions: The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes edited by Leslie Klinger - the short stories in a boxed two-volume set, and the novels in a separately-boxed volume. They look great on the shelf, as there's a silhouette of Sherlock that spreads across the spine of all three volumes. And the annotations aren't half-bad either, if you're a Baker Street Irregular.
posted by DandyRandy at 4:38 PM on December 27, 2012