Everyman's Library 100 Titles Set (ISBN 0307385256)

Amazon.com Review:
Everyman's Library celebrates over 100 years of publishing with the Everyman's Library 100 Essentials Set including one hundred bestselling titles from their distinguished catalog (from Austen to Atwood, Dante to Dostoyevsky). Each beautifully bound hardcover book features decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, and European-style half-round spines. The History Everyman's Library was founded in 1906 by London publisher Joseph Malaby Dent with the purpose of publishing literature that would appeal "to every kind of reader: the worker, the student, the cultured man, the child, the man and the woman." Everyman's Library editions feature original introductions, up-to-date bibliographies, and complete chronologies of the authors' lives and works. In 1991 Everyman's Library was relaunched by a small independent company with the support of Random House in the UK and Alfred A. Knopf in the US. The revived library featured a fine, easy-to-read typographic design, sewn cloth bindings, acid-free paper, silk ribbon-markers, and substantial new introductions and chronologies by leading scholars and writers. Pride and Prejudice was the first of fifty titles to be published in September 1991, and within twelve months 130 titles had appeared, including such major twentieth-century classics as Joyce's Ulysses, Kafka's The Trial, and Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, none of which had previously been published in Everyman's Library. By the 100th Anniversary in 2006 the list of authors Everyman's Library publishes has been joined by Achebe, Allende, Penelope Fitzgerald, Highsmith, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Nabokov, Rushdie, Updike, and Waugh, a catalog that few publishers can rival in paperback and of course none in hardcover. Quality Everyman's Library continues to maintain its original commitment to publishing the most significant world literature in editions that reflect a tradition of fine bookmaking. Everyman's Library pursues the highest standards, utilizing modern prepress, printing, and binding technologies to produce classically designed books printed on acid-free natural-cream-colored text paper and including Smyth-sewn, signatures, full-cloth cases with two-color case stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, and European-style half-round spines. Everyman's 100 Essential Titles (Included in This Set) Heart of Darkness Great Expectations To the Lighthouse Walden Beloved Crime and Punishment Carried Away A Tale of Two Cities 1984 The Handmaid's Tale Browse all 100 titles included in this set My Everyman's: Authors Choose Their Favorites To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Everyman's Library in 2006, we asked contemporary authors to choose the book they'd most like to own from the collection. Check out their picks below--and some very interesting reasons why they chose them! Alexander McCall Smith on Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher R. K. Narayan was one of the great novelists of the 20th century. This volume contains the four early novels in the Malgudi series. He is a very accessible writer--his style is clear and uncluttered and he deals with universals, which would resonate with any reader. What sets him apart as a truly remarkable writer is the way in which he manages to say so much about human nature when dealing with the small events of a small place. Narayan's small town India is a whole world; his characters, with all their hopes, ambitions and quirks, are the whole of humanity. Julia Glass on The Arabian Nights To read the story of Scheherazade, and of the tales she weaves to save her life, is like walking down a hall of brilliant mirrors, for it is surely the most glorious work of literature in praise of literature itself. Not only does it celebrate the invention and communion of stories, but it tells us that they are essential if we are to survive and flourish. That the young queen wins the sultan's heart with her imagination is a rousing call to those who still have the courage to stake their very future on their dreams. I wish that today's readers, so hooked on statistics and expert advice, so hungry for "the truth," would stop to notice that of all the most powerful stories passed down through the ages, the lion's share by far are fairy tales, heroic sagas, and novels. The true history of human nature has always been told through fiction." Valerie Martin on Dante's Divine Comedy I'm a fan of the Mandelbaum translation and very curious to read the introduction by Eugenio Montale, who is certainly a true heir to the great Florentine. What better adventure can a poet offer than a guided tour of hell, purgatory, and heaven; three captivating destinations you can't book on Travelocity. I'll take a round trip ticket, please. John Updike on Nabokov's Pnin Its installments in The New Yorker were my first acquaintance with Nabokov's prose, and I was bowled over. It remains in my mind the warmest of his fictions, and the only one originally in English which gives a picture of the pain and embarrassments of his exile in this country. Jane Hamilton on Don Quixote Don Quixote! When I was in High School my boyfriend's goal in life was to play Don Quixote in Man of Lamancha. This was something I could not understand. To want to play a lunatic, to have your hair spray-painted white, to not even get to kiss the girl? Even after he performed the part so nobly our junior year I secretly thought the play, a celebration of psychosis, was dumb. But the book! Half of the world's greatest aphorisms were written by Cervantes. I am a shallow person and I know this from reading Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. It's high time to read the book. Mark Danielewski on Shakespeare's Tragedies, Volume 1 I want them all. Camus, Chandler, Cervantes. Aeschylus, Dante, Conrad. Updike, Homer, Joyce. Morrison, Mann, Orwell. Rushdie, Virgil, Twain. García Márquez, Dostoevsky, Fitzgerald. Kafka, Woolf, Plato. The Bible, The Koran, Tolstoy. And you want me to pick one? Torture, I tell you. Choice's promising blade. Grumble. Tantrum. Sigh. Then I'll choose the one that fed me when I was hungry and calmed me when I ached, what I carried around Europe as a penniless & pretty much friendless college kid, nearly twenty years ago, thumbing over and over through that worn paperback to find a company of voices I still won't forget: William Shakespeare, Tragedies, Volume 1. Mary Gaitskill on Nabokov's Lolita It is impossible on the level of brief comment to rise to the level required by the book. But if I can go ahead and be clumsy about it, I chose it because of the way Nakokov addresses the multi-faced nature of passion and longing, and how quickly one face transforms into another, the intimate relationship between ugliness and beauty, and how close the seeds of life and death sit together in the pod. And how fascinating and exquisite the pod is just on its own. The book is deep and lightning swift at once.

Why?:
I agree with those who have expressed their affection and respect for Everyman. I have been purchasing Everyman editions for over forty years. When I started, the imprint was defunct and only second hand editions were available. Some years back, the imprint was revived, and a flow of excellently produced, affordable hardcover editions became available again, (though not in the same small, pocket-sized format as the original Everymans). BUT: is this collection a good idea? If you want to fill up the bookshelves in a new house, maybe. But realistically, how many of these books do you really want to own, and how many (of those you don't already have) will you really read in the next five or ten years? I have looked through the selection of books, and it's certainly a strange group of books. For myself, I already own about two thirds of the titles, and have little interest in the other third. I would venture to guess that few readers would be that interested in enough of these books they don't already have to make the purchase of the set a good economic value. (Which isn't to say they wouldn't be a good decorative element, but that's not what my review is about.) If what you want is to own a lot of classic texts, you might be better off with one of the Penguin Classics libraries. Yes, they're paperback rather than hardbound, but you can replace those paperbacks you want to read again with hardbacks and still save money. And the Penguin editions usually have more notes and supplementary material than the Everyman editions. If what you want is a library of the great writings of Western civilization, you can get the Great Books of the Western World series for less money than the Everyman set, and have enough great reading to last you for two or more lifetimes. (Plus, if what you want is an impressive looking bookshelf, GBWW is the set for you!) Basically, then, while the Everyman books are wonderful books for serious readers, and I am grateful to Knopf for resurrecting the imprint, I think most readers would be better off going down the list and purchasing individually the titles the actually intend to read than they would be purchasing the whole set.

Two Stars for Selection:
Everyman editions are just about my favorite, but unless you're looking specifically to build a library of modern works, this doesn't (shouldn't?) hold much interest. However they came up with this list (the Amazon description says something about "100 of our bestsellers," but that particular word doesn't mean much without clarification and context), they managed to make about 5% of literary history make up about 90% of the selections. I guess this isn't Everyman's Library so much as it is Modernman's.

indespensible:
There are many reasons to own this set. That the volumes in it are smaller than the original editions is a plus, not a minus. If you want a pocket book, then get the Penguins. These Everyman's are beautifully bound, beautifully printed, light and and compact; I love the way they fit the hands. A set of them is for reading, not for decoration. I've found that having them actually encourages me to read. Out of sight is out of mind, but these are always here to say, "Read me!" I own The Great Books, and they are not nearly as readable. They are bulky, the paper stock thin and the print tiny. Unless you are one of those who outsource their kid's education, reserving to themselves the teaching of such life essentials as shopping and television, your home library will be the core of the family's culture and learning. I've found a sriking difference between the kids of people who keep a big bookcase and kids of those who don't. The titles offered are a wonderul survey of world literature, weighted to the modern. Yes, I am glad there's no Jane Austin here. No, I'm not glad to see some politically correct selections. But making a big issue of some inclusions and omissions is just vanity. Only stupid people say they will never read a certain book. Smart people will put books before them, for example by buying sets. No, don't buy them piecemeal. Buy a whole set, either this one or the smaller Contemporary Classics set, plus, for the kids, the Children's Classics set. And, to round out, a set of the Harvard Classics, which are amazingly complimentary, with little duplication. Yes, it's an expense, but it's also an investment of a lifetime. And a legacy.

Price jump, but still a great set:
Sept. 15th: A great set for any collector, however the price was $ 1312.17 just a few months ago. Nov. 18th: From August to November they increased the price to $2230.95, but it looks like its back on sale ($1,338.57).

slight problem:
One of the books - just one - was shipped without a dust jacket. This made me very sad and will probably be a factor in my discussion of the set on various talk shows.