which editions of classics should you buy?

great so hello today i'm making a video that is going to appeal to a very specific demographic i understand that but it's a video that i've seen two other people do and i found them very interesting so yeah today i'm going to talk about different editions of class and which one you should buy so i'm going to talk about a few things i need you all to remember that i have a table right here because i'm going to show you those books i need to remember that all those the things i'm going to talk about are going to be presented from my very subjective perspective you know what i mean like for example i prefer pages that are white compared to yellow pages and i thought everyone felt like that but then i've seen someone's video saying that they prefer yellow pages and i was shocked but you know everyone's entitled to their opinion so i'm going to talk about you know white pages as if that's a better option but you know buy whatever like works for you best so i'm going to talk about a few like aspects so the floppiness of the book i personally really like and books are like very floppy and easy to open the font of the book is baselining pages so like the color of the pages how thin or thick they are and other very specific things like about like notes and whether there is an introduction chronology of like author's life those kind of things i will talk about a little bit about the covers too but you know whether you like the cover or not is very subjective but i will talk about kind of the durability of the cover if like stands the test of time you know because that's what's important when you're like making a collection of classics i mean at least for me so this video will be divided into three parts because there are three categories kind of based on the price range price range so first we have kind of lower end books that i would consider inexpensive i have three editions here two of those are actually from the same publishing house and that's wordsworth classics i believe this is the older edition and this is newer one they are not the different when it comes to the font i would say they're pretty much the same but when it comes to the cover i do believe the elders edition the older editions are a little bit more durable because i don't know if you can see but the cover kind of rubs off or like chips off can you see i hope you can see but yeah the spine also breaks easily and this one i do like the cover more but also it just feels more it feels like it's of a better quality so let me show you the pages okay so from what i've noticed the pages in the older editions of word with classics are more yellow well these ones are more white so let me show you this is the elder edition this is the newer one the font is pretty much the same i would say i do prefer the newer editions because i like the contrast between like white pages and you know black font so it's easier for me to read like that but they're pretty similar the font is quite small the spacing is not the best is it's pretty small too but it's not the worst so if you compare those two to the collins classics collins yeah the collins classics they are if you can see the cones classics are smaller look at that and actually the font is even smaller in the colors classics it is tiny it's really hard to read so personally out of those three i would choose the word worse editions so let me show you how tiny the font is in the collins classics this is the collins classics classic and that is the wordsworth glasses it is really small so when it comes to the boots when it comes to the less expensive ones they are great when you're a student i'd say and when you want to like take take notes in your book because for me at least personally when i have like more expensive book i feel a little bit more nervous to take notes in it so when you have those cheap ones you can do whatever you want with them so those ones are great for students like i said i would go with wordsworth classics the older editions but both are fine okay now we're in the like medium range price wise and that's the range where i have most classics from i guess let's start with the vintage ones so i have two the first one is you know very popular one vintage classics with their red spines i like this the font is nice it's easy to read it does have kind of yellowish pages but you know it's fine the spine can crack this i didn't crack this one but definitely when it comes to longer books it is easier to crack this it's not as easy to crack this spine compared to for example the word was classics this newer edition are the black penguin classics so the spine doesn't crack that easily but you can definitely crack it i'd say that those are quite durable so i like i like the cover it's quite sturdy it will later show you the font but the thing is and i've seen that happen with quite a few of those editions but i don't know if you can see if the camera will pick it up but there's kind of like film thingy on a cover that kind of can come off oh can you see right here yeah this thing sometimes i've seen it in like bookshops that sell you know used books that can kind of rub off or come off a little bit so that's not great but overall i do like those editions let me show you the font here it's nice and big it's easy to read compared to the words of classics uh it's bigger the spacing is bigger yeah it's great the the pages are a little bit more yellow but i really like it i also have one book uh in the collection of like jane austen vintage classics and i have to say i'm not a huge fan of them i bought bright and prejudice and i wanted to collect either all of them are the ones i enjoy the most so pride and prejudice northanger abbey and persuasion but after i bought it i decided that i don't think i'm going to do it because it is hard to read from this edition i'm not sure if you can see but it's really hard to open it the font is great but it's hard to read it because it's hard to open like look at it i like floppy editions because when you open them they kind of stay like that but with this one it just like closes right up like i hate that so because of that it's not as easy let me show you the font the phone is really nice but it's really like hard to read like this part so and you have to like really push it down for it to stay like that otherwise it will just close right up oh that's my notes sorry so yeah i'm not a huge fan of those they do look nice like on the shelf but when it comes to like actually reading those i wouldn't necessarily recommend them but that that's my preference then we have an edition that i really like which is the oxford world's classics this is how it looks the white spine like a red thingy right here i'm not a huge fan of the spine but overall it's a really nice addition it's floppy and the greatest thing about this book is that i don't think you can crack as far at the spine like i can do this to the book and nothing happens sorry i keep looking at the viewfinder because it's easier for me to see if you can see anything so yeah the font the font is okay let me compare it to the words worth classics the spacing is not the greatest uh let me show you okay so you have this see i don't have to push it down for it to stay like that amazing and then i have the words worth classics so the font is similar i do feel like the font in this one what is it oxford words classics is a little bit more bold and therefore easier to read when it comes to like the sizing i think it's kind of similar but for some reason i do find this easier to read so another great thing about the oxford awards classics please focus on me is that if not only the spine doesn't crack it is very durable and floppy but also it has great notes and introduction and also aside from that it has you have note on the text you have chronology of the author like their life here you even have a map of i guess london yeah the london of the odd woman so here we have a map and in the end you have notes i believe yeah explanatory notes so this i don't think let me think about this i don't think any other edition had those kind of notes i think they mostly just have oh no the wordsworth editions have now it only has introduction and author's preface wait no those you do have notes cool okay so yeah let me check colleen's classics okay so when it comes to the collins classics it has a very short introduction i wouldn't even call it an introduction it's like this like shirt this is the edge of innocence it says life and times so it gives you like a little bit of context of when this was written um yeah it's literally like three pages so not very long and you have some notes wait you don't have notes you have that's weird like words and phrases that you wouldn't really maybe you wouldn't understand because they're not too early used in modern times so that's what you have you don't really have notes uh when it comes to the word voice classics you do have an introduction and you do have notes not very very like thorough but you do have notes but with this one you have an introduction notes on the text like explanatory notes on the text chronology of the author's life and no that's it so i think those are really great additions when you want a little bit more of like academic notes i'd say this is the best one so bottom line really great cover durability uh you know floppiness great notes so these are really great for students you know those who need a little bit more of like academic notes but the front is not my favorite it's not super big but it's not terrible so i do like those additions and now let's get to all of the you're probably wondering about that let's get to all of the penguin classics i have a few that i would like to talk about okay so i guess let's start with the most famous one which is what is it called the penguin orange spine classics the penguin penguin penguin english library classics yeah that's what the title is i said orange because the spine is a little bit orange so i really like those editions i really do they're floppy the font is great really big the spacing is great i really like the font itself let me show you the spine doesn't really crack so yeah this is the font here let me compare it to okay so you have the so we have the words one of the classics with you know this small font and that's the penguin in english library classics really great i love it the um the paper itself is quite thin but i personally like it and it's white so that's great i really like the cover so the only you know downside to those editions is that they don't really have notes and they don't have introductions i believe they definitely don't have notes so if that's something that's important to you i would go with something different wordsworth classics or you know the oxford oh jesus christ expert words classics but yeah if you don't really care about notes and you know those kind of stuff i'd say this is great they're pretty cheap they're very easy to read they're floppy yeah the covers are really pretty they're look really pretty next to each other on the shelf obviously we have those modern classics of like mint spine the font is pretty similar i also like it the the pages are white they're easy to read they're kind of floppy i don't have anything that's like longer when it comes to modern classics in this edition but i would assume the longer classics would also be kind of floppy it does have this like cardboard feeling to the cover which i don't like so there's that do they have notes oh this is a play this is not the greatest example okay let me show you the introduction this is how the pump looks like so i would assume this is kind of similar to the penguin english english library classic so pages are white it feels very similar also have the small black classics i like the paper is like really thick for some reason i like it the front is similar to all the other editions of penguin classics it's cheap and it kind of lets you get a taste of like author's writing so if you're not sure about like if you like an author you can just like buy one of his like shorter text in this this edition is how it looks yeah nice big easy to read and then you have my favorite edition which is the black pantheon penguin classics they are floppy the font is great it's big it has nice spacing it has white pages so the contrast between you know the text and page makes it easy to read for me personally they have an amazing selection of classics you can pretty much find anything in this edition so you know if you want to collect books in one edition you can find a lot of plastics in this edition in particular but as you can see i'm not sure if you can see but the cover does get easily damaged so it kind of chips away like this yeah oh right here yeah you can see and when it comes to like bigger longer books the spine can crack with these so let me show you the front it's really nice it's really kind of thick like bold so i don't know compared to it again and you can see it stays like that compared to ward wars classics yeah it's really nice compared to the vintage classics it's also i think a little bigger i'm not sure but yeah i do really like the font so this is one of my favorites personally but that being said recently i bought a tale of two cities by charles dickens and i thought i was buying it in this edition but i mean i did buy the english black the penguin black classics i think it's called but it's kind of a newer addition and if you can see ah they're a little bit different so the biggest difference is kind of the font when it comes to title and this kind of like line with the penguin penguin kind of sign is different and this paints look different uh i can't tell if you can see anything but yeah they're different and i don't like the newer editions um when it comes to the cover but take all of the of the things that i'm going to say with a grain of salt but the new penguin black classics have a lot more notes so okay not only this is an introduction but it also has like dickens chronology so like the chronology of charles dickens life this one also has a timeline so like i think it gives you a little bit more of historical context if i remember correctly yeah but like i said you should take all of this with a grain of salt because this book if i remember correctly correctly it's about french revolution so i feel like you might need a little bit more context to understand this book but yeah it also has like further reading uh critical studies of tales hotels and cities historical studies on the french revolution note on the text there's a lot and only then it starts so the book itself then you have an appendix appendix one appendix two appendix three and then you have note on the text at the end so only this part in the middle is actual text like actual book telev to cities all of this is like additional notes and also this one has illustrations which i have never encountered with penguin black classics so if you know if you have this like new edition of penguin black classics can you tell me if like this is an occurrence in every single new new edition or is it just a tail of two cities so lastly we have the third category which is like more expensive classics as you can imagine i don't have a lot i don't own a lot of those because i don't have the money to buy those i would assume that penguin club bound classics would be in this category but i don't own any of those i heard from some people like quite a few people that the cover kind of rubs off a little after some time but yeah not sure so i have here whoops those are my notes here i have the everman's library classics that i bought east so this is how it looks with the of the dust jacket and this is how it looks oh hello i bought it in montreal actually and this is how it looks without the cover is super pretty depending on like which time in the history like it was the book was written it has a different uh cover so this is very durable so great quality it has nice font and spacing which i will show you in a second ah it's so pretty so nice look at that the pages feel really nice they're thick and feel like they're really good quality paper they have like comprehensive chronology of like author's life and like what was happening in the world i think or is it just an author's life okay so we have author's life historical context and literary context and that goes on for a few pages i believe yeah so that's very helpful i really like that but the weird thing is it doesn't have notes yeah just the book ends and it doesn't have any notes wait maybe it has like notes at the bottom of the page nope no it doesn't so that's weird but overall i would recommend it but it is quite expensive so it's weird that it doesn't have notes right and last one is what is it called mcmillan's classics macmillan wait macmillan collectors library wait did i show you the text no i didn't so this is how the text looks the everman's library classics there's it's so nice the paper is so thick and it has that what do you call that it's literally like ribbon thing it tells you where you are in the text yeah it's it feels expensive and yeah lastly we have the macmillan collectors library editions they have really pretty cover underneath it's like textured not sure you can you can see that but it's really pretty it has gold edges yeah here i have a few plays by oscar wilde look how pretty it is yeah it's really pretty but it's kind of expensive and as you can see like compared to a regular size book it's super tiny so it's like a pocket edition i don't own any like actual novels in this edition but i have you know collection of plays by oscar wilde and i would recommend it it's the font is really easy to read actually the paper is white it is like kind of floppy and yeah i'm not sure about actual novels but like compared to you know wordsworth classics i do find it easy and they are really pretty so yeah all in all which edition you want to buy depends on what you expect from your book like if you want a pretty cover if you want it to be easy to read it's like the size of the font is important to you for me it's very important i'm blind i need the phone to be big and like the space line spacing it has to be like nice and you know because i have astigmatism and like sometimes i would re when the font is really small i would read and i would like lose i would finish the line and like would get lost in the text and wouldn't be able to tell where i finished reading does that make sense i don't know but yeah that's what happens when the front is really small and also like i get really tired after reading like very small font when everything classic especially so for me a big font is a very important aspect to summarize if you're on a budget i would go with the workforce classics editions you can rank them you can you know make notes in them they're fine if you can spend a little bit more on your books and your student or you just like having that additional context to your book i would go with the oxford words classics edition they're nice they're durable they have a lot of notes and like chronology of author's life they have it all and they really like them my personal favorites are the penguin english library and the black penguin classics i just love the penguin classics editions i don't like the font if you have trouble reading a small font i would go for these ones and also if you like white pages compared to yellow pages if you want pretty additions i guess you could go for either of those but you know i don't have strong opinions so those and those that are pretty but didn't blow me away i guess that's it i hope this video was informative if i said something wrong please kindly like correct me in the comments i wish the comment section would be you know a nice resource for other people so if you have some other opinions or your auditions look a little bit different than mine please tell me especially tell me you've had the new black penguin classics editions and if they also have a lot more notes in them so yeah i hope you enjoyed it and see you next video bye

Channel: Ania's Bell Jar

Views: 15,566

Rating: 4.9702826 out of 5

Keywords: classicscommunity, classics, classics editions, classics guide, favorite editions of classics, classics collection, booktube, guide to classics, classic books, what classic to buy, which edition of classics to buy, classic editions, penguin classics, wordsworth classics, everyman's library, collins classics, macmillan collectors library, vintage classics, oxford world's classics

Id: rwoRrZy-qvQ

Length: 24min 24sec (1464 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 17 2020