Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Tulkinghorn on Crime, Adventure, and Trainspotting

"Collect them all."

That's me sitting by the tracks, keeping a notebook with all the engine numbers of the trains passing by: I buy books in sets. And recently, British shelves have been filled with limited edition sets of public domain titles with great design

Thank God for the collapse of the pound....

Penguin Classic Boys Adventures: Tarzan, She, The Lost World, The 39 Steps, The Prisoner of Zenda.

Penguin Gothic Classics : Lair of the White Worm, House on the Borderland, Dunwich Horror, M.R. James, Vernon Lee.

But wait... There's more:

The Caustic Cover Critic tells us of yet another series of "Classic Crime" books combining great design and public domain fiction this one from an English publisher unfamiliar to me called Atlantic Books. How many copies of "Riddle of the Sands" or "Raffles" or "Bulldog Drummond" can you own? All of them.

And if you're more interested in (ahem) more adult matters, there's always Bookkake (if you don't know, don't ask) : classic erotica, for God's sake, in the public domain with great design:
Fanny Hill, Venus in Furs, and Liber Amoris by William Hazlitt (!). Covers not acceptable in a family blog, but tasteful.

4 comments:

Christian Lindke said...

So I can avoid $7.00+ each book in shipping, is there another site from which I can order the books?

David Chute said...

Tulk, it's great to have you back.

That said, the Bookake gang (that name: Gick!) flunks the anti-poseur test: All their introductions are by "theorists" and "edgy" poets.

Nice covers, though.

Tulkinghorn said...

I haven't checked, but the vagaries of international book distribution often result in British editions being distributed in Canada. Not sure that the exchange rate is as favorable.

There's always the option of ordering from amazon.uk as well.... If you order a lot of books, the per book rate goes down.

Tulkinghorn said...

Confirming that the Boys Adventure series is available at amazon.ca for $10.95 Canadian and $1.99 Canadian for shipping per book (on top of an initial $7.99 charge)