Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Tuesday, April 22, 2003
|
Permalink

 
Perfect Size
On April 2, I mentioned the Oxford World's Classics hardbacks. Based on the fact that the site has not been updated and many of the titles come up as out of print on Amazon.com, I'm guessing that the project did not meet with the success it deserved. I've added quite a few additional titles to my shelf recently, and one of the things I've noticed is that the quality of paper and typography in the later books is not as nice as in the earlier ones, which had a clear modern typeface and thin Bible-like paper. This decline in quality (combined with the decision to print The Monk and Casting The Runes with gaudy slipcovers instead of the tasteful pastels) is a disappointment. Still, I think these books deserve a lot of attention.

First and foremost, they are the right size. You might think that Oxford sabotaged itself by choosing to print so many thick classics and so few thin ones in this series; to an extent, I agree. But last night I lay in bed reading Anna Karenina and I have to say that even the thick books are handy and comfortable. The sheer size of some books makes them intimidating, but when they are so easy to hold in the hand, even in the early pages (where the distribution of weight is most awkward, leading many paperback readers to crease the spines of their books), reading is a delight. Even so, it would have been wiser to publish more slender volumes like Robinson Crusoe and Fathers and Sons, since these are more attractive to the average reader -- myself included.

Mass market paperbacks are popular because they are cheap and handy, but their poor quality paper and glued binding mean that they are, at best, disposable. Think of the rows of paperback shelves at your local used bookstore, and how rarely you visit them. The small hardback, on the other hand, is a reader's delight: the ideal size, a crisp, flexible feel in the hand, a page-turning pleasure. Even though these Oxford hardbacks are disappearing from the shelves, I'm snapping them up wherever I see them, just to have the opportunity to read and re-read these classics in style.