ecstacy is reserved for the day i own the tartarus press hardbound editions, the widener library copies of which i cradled jealously through my graduate school years and which (to what was then relief but now indignation) no one ever recalled. for even when impecuniosity was no obstacle i had always hesitated to so readily fork out that princely price of $400, though they were worth every cent, so beautifully-produced, the weighty double volume richly-clad in their wine-red covers. in fact when learning that faber has reissued four of his short story collections (all by this month) my pleasure was mingled with unease, the fear was that the physical books would be poor editions, unworthy bodies. the new covers, certainly, give me no confidence: unfair perhaps, and who knows till i had the books in hand, but the illustrations immediately put me in mind of the dover ‘thrift’ editions of classic works. naturally i have always cared about editions, but when books were simply paperbooks, i was less fussy about which i owned than coming into possession: for coming into contact with the words was what was key. today, when a vast part of my reading is of ebooks, i am much more particular about which editions of paperbooks i owned. why clutter up shelves with texts unattractively set, covers that are displeasing, paper so crummy they dishonour the author? if the tangible body of the book were still made to matter, and it matters to me, then why not make that body a beautiful one? it makes me wonder if i should not simply buy the tartarus editions, for apart from the out-of-reach collected stories they also have kept in limited print the individual aickmans (in sewn hardbacks each as gorgeously produced as the collected counterparts) but at more than 30 pounds for each volume i shrink again from the price. perhaps i’ll give these new fabers a chance.
Best of the Transparent Hummingbird