Great Illustrated Classics

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Great Illustrated Classics

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1Collectorator
gen. 25, 2012, 7:21 pm

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2tjsjohanna
gen. 25, 2012, 7:35 pm

I vote it is a regular series, NOT a publisher series. The stories are re-written for this series in particular, at least as far as I can gather when I've worked on adaptations. I don't think I've run across a situation where the author of the Great Illustrated Classics adaptation also was the author for another adaptation under another publisher. Just my two cents.

3AnnieMod
gen. 25, 2012, 7:48 pm

These had been specially commissioned for the series which makes them a Series. If someone re-published later, that does not make it less of a series.

PS: And even if some day it gets down to Publisher series, all that will need to be done is the entries to be moved 2 lines down the page. So I would say get it done...

4rsterling
gen. 25, 2012, 9:16 pm

Seems like a series to me, since the text is changed and thus shouldn't be combined with the original work.

Somewhat related, I had started a thread about this series a couple months ago, asking how we should list/attribute primary and other authors for these adaptations and similar ones:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/127579
I don't think we had much discussion or resolution, but if anyone working on the series has any thoughts about how to list the authors, they'd be welcome. I found it strange to see, say, Mark Twain listed as the primary author when the text wasn't his, and wondered if we should designate that strange status in some way.

5Collectorator
gen. 25, 2012, 9:21 pm

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6aulsmith
gen. 25, 2012, 11:06 pm

Are we talking about the comic books or the juvenile books with the pictures?

7Collectorator
gen. 25, 2012, 11:57 pm

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8aulsmith
gen. 26, 2012, 11:21 am

Oh dear. I had no idea that they were rewritten. I did figure out they were abridged at age 14 and stopped reading them. However, if I were at a cocktail party, I would talk about Around the World in Eighty Days and any of the other classics illustrated that I read as if I'd read the actual book.

9AnnieMod
gen. 26, 2012, 11:23 am

>8 aulsmith:

Maybe. But Adaptations and abridgments are not to be combined into the main works. Even if people tend to read abridged and then talk as if they read the whole thing.:)

10brightcopy
gen. 26, 2012, 11:54 am

#8 by aulsmith> I still feel like the cocktail party test is a good guideline, but not a rule. The Stand versus The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition are an example where the cocktail party test doesn't really reflect how LT consensus shakes out.

11aulsmith
gen. 26, 2012, 12:41 pm

10: Yes, I can see that. It's been the place I start when thinking about these things, but AnnieMod's point in 9 is certainly as good a guideline as a cocktail party.

12jjwilson61
gen. 26, 2012, 9:26 pm

3> If someone re-published later, that does not make it less of a series.

That point of view was expressed by several people but I believe the opinion that republications outside of the series *do* cause the series to become a publishers series. The reason is that someone's edition that isn't in the series could show up in his library as part of that series when it isn't.

13gilroy
gen. 27, 2012, 7:48 am

#7

I would vote that someone chose an ISBN, didn't care how it linked, and then uploaded a cover. Definitely not the correct way to do it, but what looks like happened.

14AnnieMod
gen. 27, 2012, 10:33 am

>12 jjwilson61:

Simply because someone published a few of the books 20 years later without the series designation? If we go this route, then anything besides character related series is becoming a publisher one (even things like For Dummies series).

Just thinking aloud.

15jjwilson61
gen. 27, 2012, 11:24 am

In 20 years Tim should have the editions layer working and then series could be an edition-layer field where it should be.

16brightcopy
gen. 27, 2012, 11:44 am

#15 by jjwilson61> I'd still think Series would be a work-layer field and Publisher Series would be an edition-layer one. Or if there was just "Series" and you could apply it either to the whole work or only individual editions.

I think we'd still have some of the debates about items that are initially commissioned by a publisher as part of an exclusive (publisher) series that then get re-published outside the series. That whole question of if the original commission still ties them together in a "Series" way or in a "Publisher Series" way.

17Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 12:40 pm

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

18brightcopy
gen. 27, 2012, 12:51 pm

When you're actually interested in having a civil conversation, let me know. If you're just looking to soapbox, please carry on.

19Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 12:55 pm

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

20AnnieMod
gen. 27, 2012, 1:08 pm

21rsterling
gen. 27, 2012, 1:14 pm

We don't need an editions layer. What we need is for it to be allowed to separate editions and make series out of them. There are already thousands of examples of "don't put those in here" warnings across LT.

I'm on the fence about an editions layer, but what would really help is a book layer, where we could explode editions to get the crappy data out of them (the book with the wrong ISBN, matching a different work, the movies with no way to separate them from books). Failing that, a ratty data flag for those books.

The problem is that the editions that are not allowed in the main work are not allowed to be in a SERIES either!
I'm not sure what examples you're thinking of here, but perhaps part of the issue is that the "series" vs. "publishers series" definition applies to the group of works as a whole, not to individual works. So it may be that an edition is not allowed in the main work because it's an abridgment, but that other works in the same "series" are not abridgments. The books that aren't abridgments should not be separated, and then the existence of some works that aren't exclusive to the "series" makes the whole thing a publisher series, for all the books in it.

22rsterling
gen. 27, 2012, 1:23 pm

17 - Why this particular group of books - The Great Illustrated Classics - has been deemed to be allowed to have its own SERIES I do not know.

Well, you asked for our views. The reason I thought this could qualify as a series is that the works in it are exclusive to the series, as far as I know. Frankly, I'd be perfectly happy with it being listed as a publisher series (since it's put out by a publisher), but by LT's definition of series, there's nothing that disqualifies Great Illustrated Classics from being a series. If the works were not exclusive to this series, then I'd say definitely make it a publisher series. But as far as I can tell, these are (a) abridgments, so not the same as the original work, and (b) abridgments that are exclusive to Great Illustrated Classics. If these turn out not to be abridgments, or if they are abridgments but it turns out that the same abridgments have been published in other "series," then I would say move it to publisher series.

Does that make sense?

Here's a sort of flow chart I would use:

Are all the works exclusive to the series?
If no: Publisher series.

If yes: then ask, were these works intentionally and originally created as part of this series?
If no: Publisher series.
If yes (to both questions): series.

(That second question would cover things like a numbered series of The Collected Works of So-and-So, which even if only one publisher had a monopoly, weren't originally published like that by the author, and so the "Collected Works" would be a publisher series.)

23Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 1:29 pm

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24Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 1:37 pm

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25rsterling
gen. 27, 2012, 1:37 pm

I think what you're saying is that for the GIClassics, for example, EVERY one of the books that are now split from the main works must be an abridgement, OR, those that aren't must be put back into the main work. Doesn't that seem like one helluva lot of work to determine this?

Yes, but I just see that work as part of the responsibility of combiners.

The other method you describe might be simpler, but I don't think it would work given LT's definition of a series.

Now, I think you go on to say that the FACT that some of these were abridgements, and some were not, forces the whole set into Publisher Series.

Correct. This is what follows from the LT's definition of a series. All the works in the series have to be exclusive to that series.

From the series page:
"A good rule of thumb is that series have a conventional name and are intentional creations, on the part of the author or publisher. "
"Also avoid publisher series, unless the publisher has a true monopoly over the 'works' in question. So, the Dummies guides are a series of works. But the Loeb Classical Library is a series of editions, not of works."

26Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 1:40 pm

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

27rsterling
Editat: gen. 27, 2012, 1:46 pm

I don't understand what you mean by works in it exclusive to the series. Every single book in it is a reprint of a classic that has been reprinted jillions of times over. If Penelope Plume wrote a Tom Sawyer for Signet, and one for GIC, and one for Ladybird, and one for Modern Library, how does that impact the four series overall? So she signs lots of contracts with various publishers. I don't see how it has anything to do with the other books in the four series written by others.

What series are you talking about here?

Ok, so if there's a book called Tom Sawyer written by Penelope Plume, and it's published in exactly the same identical version (Plume's text is identical in each one, not rewritten or adapted in any way) by Signet, GIC, Ladybird, and Modern Library, that makes Signet, GIC, Ladybird, and Modern Library all publisher series.
ETA: Note, my inclusion of GIC here is just hypothetical, since you mentioned it in your question. As far as I know, GIC works are *not* the same as the original novels, but are all adaptations.

If Bluebird commissions Artemis Schumaker to write a children's adaptation of Plume's story Tom Sawyer, and Bluebird Classics retains exclusive publication of Schumaker's adaptation, and the adaptation is not published anywhere else, then as long as all the other works in Bluebird Classics are also like that (exclusively put out by Bluebird Classic) then Bluebird Classics can qualify as a series.

28Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 1:42 pm

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29rsterling
gen. 27, 2012, 1:45 pm

No one would ever say that GIC has a true monopoly over Tom Sawyer.

As far as I know, GIC has a monopoly over this particular adaptation of Tom Sawyer. This GIC version is *not* Twain's original text. It is based on the original plot/story, but the text is a complete rewriting, in different language. As long as that particular rewriting/adaptation is exclusive to GIC, GIC can be a series. (If we find out later that this particular adaptation is *not* exclusive to GIC, then GIC would need to be moved to publisher series. But my guess is that GIC commissioned people to write these adaptations specifically for the GIC series, and that these particular adaptations aren't published by anyone else.)

30Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 1:51 pm

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31rsterling
gen. 27, 2012, 2:07 pm

Side note: in your "help" group on the series, those three works seem to be the following (based on the members' catalogs that have them):

Author: Various
Title: Great Illustrated Classics
Date: 2001
Publication: Bausch & Lomb Vision Accessories (2001), Unknown Binding
ISBN: 0681707690
This one is not in Worldcat, but I'm guessing it's something completely different that just happens to have this title, since it's put out by a very different publisher.

Author: Stevenson, Robert Louis
Title: Great illustrated classics
Year: 1956
Publication: Dodd, Mead (1956), Unknown Binding, 297 pages
ISBN: none
This is the only Worldcat match I get for a Stevenson book with that series and publisher, published in 1956:
http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Stevenson%2C+Robert+Louis%2C+great+illustrated+...
However, there are several other Stevenson books in the series (and put out by Dodd, Mead) in other years.

Author: none
Title: 3 Books in 1 (Great Illustrated Classics) (Great Illustrated Classics, 272)
year: 1999
Publication: Playmore Waldman (1999), Edition: 1st, Hardcover
ISBN: none
I'm not sure whether this is the same series, but perhaps Playmore Waldman took over the imprint from Baronet.
Worldcat gives two possibilities for this one:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/christmas-carol-old-and-new-testament/oclc/4924289...
http://www.worldcat.org/title/adventures-of-tom-sawyer-the-adventures-of-huckleb...
Since the member has tagged the book as "Christmas," maybe it's safe to assume it's the first of those options.

32rsterling
gen. 27, 2012, 2:16 pm

Well, what if Penelope Plume is guilty of having written a Tom Sawyer for Signet and GIC? I've seen people say here in talk that if that is the case, well, off to Publisher Series for the whole lot of 'em.
If the works are the same/identical, then that makes Signet and GIC a publisher series, yes.


Is it really worthwhile to investigate the entire bibliography of every author in every series? What about pen-names?

Well, we do what we can. I wouldn't investigate every single author. However, some research on just a few of the works can help to determine if any are distinct adaptation/abridgment/otherwise different or if any are identical to the original work. All it takes is finding *one* that has been published elsewhere or that is not a distinct version exclusive to that publisher, to know that the whole thing is a publisher series; no need to investigate further. If you look at a few, and all of them seem to be distinct versions, then it's pretty safe to say they should be separate works and that they can be a series. But if we later figure out that some works in the series aren't distinct, it's no biggie: we can switch it to publisher series. But a little bit of work is needed to check whether a work is properly combined/separated and then whether a series seems to be exclusive or not.

Wouldn't it be simpler to divide the books by their publication details in the first place, and if Signet has a bunch that all look the same, that's a SERIES. Signet intentionally did that, you know.
No, because that's not LT's definition of a series, and because identical works are supposed to be combined. The latter is one of the fundamental principles of LT. I might own a copy of Hamlet published by Harper Collins, and you might own one published by Signet. But because they are the same work, they are supposed to be combined. Signet can't be a series because it doesn't apply to the work level, i.e. to all copies of the work.

33Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 2:20 pm

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34Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 2:25 pm

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35rsterling
gen. 27, 2012, 2:34 pm

If the works in 33 are not identical to the original work, then no they should definitely not be combined.

I would be in favor of moving some of those -- if they're not Twain's original text -- off Twain's page, or at least off the main works section of his page, by using the other authors feature, if we could determine who wrote the adaptation, and if we could decide on an appropriate appellation/role for Twain (original story?).

About combining and series and instructions, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm working with the rules and consensus that have been developed on this site for years. These things have been worked out sometimes through explicit instructions, and then through discussion and general agreement about how we should do things. There are still some areas of disagreement on the edges, but not really on the fundamentals of what constitutes a work and what constitutes a series.

36Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 2:37 pm

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

37rsterling
Editat: gen. 27, 2012, 2:49 pm

For series, the right column of any series page:

What isn't a series?

Series was designed to cover groups of books generally understood as such (see Wikipedia: Book series). Like many concepts in the book world, "series" is a somewhat fluid and contested notion. A good rule of thumb is that series have a conventional name and are intentional creations, on the part of the author or publisher. For now, avoid forcing the issue with mere "lists" of works possessing an arbitrary shared characteristic, such as relating to a particular place. Avoid series that cross authors, unless the authors were or became aware of the series identification (eg., avoid lumping Jane Austen with her continuators).

Also avoid publisher series, unless the publisher has a true monopoly over the "works" in question. So, the Dummies guides are a series of works. But the Loeb Classical Library is a series of editions, not of works.


For works, here:


LibraryThing Concepts

What are tags? | What are works?
What are tags?
(short answer)

Tags are a simple way to categorize books according to how you think of them, not how some library official does. Anything can be a tag—just type words or phrases, separated by commas. Thus one person will tag the The DaVinci Code "novels" while another tags it "trashy, religion, mary," and still another only "summer home." Tags are particularly useful for searching and sorting—when you need a list of all your novels or all the books at the summer home.
(long answer)

Once you have a hundred books or so, you need some way to organize them. Library subject classifications, including that of the Library of Congress, are one solution. For most personal libraries, however, they aren't much use. "Tags," informal, personal markers used on blogs and sites like Flickr and Del.icio.us, provide a better model.

Here are two examples from my (Tim's) experience:

The LC catalogs Bean's Aegean Turkey, a guide to the archaeological sites of Turkey's western coast, under the single subject, "Ionia." For me, however, the book is about turkey and archaeology, tags I've applied to dozens of books, including Bean's other archaeological guides.
The LC thinks Bernadette Brooten's Love between women: early Christian responses to female homoeroticism is about six different things, including the mouthful "Bible. N.T. Romans I, 18-32 — Criticism, interpretation, etc. — History — Early church, ca. 30-600." I get by with the tags early church, and homosexuality. To these I added the tag divination. Although the book doesn't say much about divination, its comments on the topic were actually the reason I picked it up.

Tags can also mark "favorites" or "books to read." I've used the tag ben's to mark books I should return to my friend Ben. (That I included them in my catalog is, however, a bad sign for that!)

In addition to being a way to organize your own collection, social content sites like Flickr and Del.icio.us have shown that large numbers of different users' tags produce categorization structures ("folksonomies") that can surpass traditional taxonomies. (See Clay Shirky's talk "Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links and Tags" for a stimulating discussion.) As LibraryThing grows, I expect to use this data in new and interesting ways.
What are works?

The purpose of works is social. Books that a library catalog considers distinct can nevertheless be a single LibraryThing "work." A work brings together all different copies of a book, regardless of edition, title variation, or language. This works system will provide improved shared cataloging, recommendations and more. For example, if you wanted to discuss M. I. Findley's The Ancient Economy, you wouldn't really care whether someone else had the US or the British edition, the first edition or the second.
What is a book then?

The "This Book" data on the book information page is particular to YOUR copy—the distinct edition that's sitting on your bookshelf. None of the combining and separating of works will change anyone's personal book data.
What works should be combined?

Title variations. The British Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is, apart from a few slang tweaks, the same as the American Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. These people ought to be able to speak to each other.
Non-English editions. Il codice da Vinci and The DaVinci Code are, for social purposes, the same book. For example, there are too few Italian books in the system for any of the recommendations to be good, but with work combinations, the system can suggest that people who own Il codice da Vinci might also like Deception Point.
Special editions. The deluxe, illustrated edition of Alice in Wonderland is the same work as a humble Dover edition.
Formats. The unabridged audio book of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is the same work as the paper copy.

What works shouldn't be combined?

Part/whole issues. The Fellowship of the Ring is not the same work as The Lord of the Rings. This part/whole relationship will be handled by a future improvement.
Books ABOUT a book. This includes "Cliff's Notes," "Spark Notes," critical interpretations, adaptations, etc. A study guide to Foucault's The History of Sexuality is not the same as the book itself.
Derivative works. The CD of the musical Wicked is not the same as Gregory Maguire's novel. Nabokov's screenplay to Lolita is not the same as his novel.

What are some edge cases?

Remember, the purpose of the system is social. Therefore, I feel that some edition or language differences are so major as to be socially significant. Two examples:

The Kama Sutra is not the same as the The Pop-Up Kama Sutra (a remarkable assemblage of paper and thread). In theory the same text, the content is really quite different, with attending social differences.
A Greek edition of Homer is not the same as an English translation. Socially, the former connects you with other Greek scholars, and should recommend other Greek-language works, not the "Classics of Western Civilization" works that the English translation does.


Also the right column of any combine page:


What are works?

See About Books and Works for a full explanation of the system.

Works connect all the different editions of a book, so that members with one edition can connect to members with other editions. Works also improve the recommendation system and much more.

Nothing you do will change anyone's personal data.
What to combine?

Editions. The Dover and Signet editions of Alice in Wonderland are the same work. Ditto normal and "deluxe illustrated editions."

Title variants. The British Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the same work as the American Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Foreign editions. The Italian and English-language editions of a book are the same work.
What NOT to combine?

Part/whole issues. The Fellowship of the Ring is not the same work as The Lord of the Rings. This part/whole relationship will be handled by a future improvement.

Edition or language differences with a significant social difference. This concept is up for debate, but I have two examples:

(1) The Kama Sutra is not the same as the The Pop-Up Kama Sutra (a remarkable assemblage of paper and thread). In theory the same text, the content is really quite different, with attending social differences.

(2) A Greek edition of Homer is not the same as an English translation. Socially, the former connects you with other Greek scholars, and should recommend other Greek-language works, not the "Classics of Western Civilization" works that the English translation does.
What?!

Debate these concepts on the LibraryThing blog or Site talk group.



See also these wiki pages, which are a combination of the explicit instructions and the outcome of subsequent discussion/consensus:

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Series
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Book_combining

And then, there have also been lots of discussions in the Combiners, Series, and Common Knowledge groups, and I sometimes find it helpful to search or ask there for confusing/edge cases.

38Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 3:01 pm

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

39rsterling
gen. 27, 2012, 3:08 pm

The things I quoted are what Tim said.

40Collectorator
gen. 27, 2012, 3:18 pm

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

41rsterling
gen. 27, 2012, 3:31 pm

I didn't say they were what he said in Talk. These are explicit instructions that he put on various pages on the site.

Someone could probably search talk to try to find everything Tim has ever said in addition to the instructions on the combination, series, and what is a work pages. I don't have time to do that, though. Is there a specific question about some part of the instructions?

(I'm out for the day, though, so won't be checking in again for a while.)

42jjwilson61
gen. 27, 2012, 9:09 pm

33> They are separated from the main work, bolded at the top.
I say that they should be combined into the main work or be allowed to be parts of ~50 different series. They're already separated!! No cocktailing is going on here!!


Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Longman Simplified English Series)

If you can find other Longman Simplified English Series books by all means, add this and the others that you find to a series. I think abridgements are all assumed to be different from each other because very few people have the actual books to compare.

43rsterling
Editat: gen. 29, 2012, 1:57 pm

Here's a complication with the Great Illustrated Classics series: there may be old and new versions of the series, where the adaptations are different.

See for instance The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

The 1990 Great Illustrated Classics version, published by Baronet Books, is adapted by
Deidre S. Laiken, with illustrations by Pablo Marcos Studio.
1990 version, 239 pages: http://www.worldcat.org/title/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/oclc/24345373&r...

Earlier Great Illustrated Classics versions of the book, published when they were put out by Dodd / Dodd, Mead, were adapted by by Stanley T. Williams. (ETA, actually, these earlier ones may not have been adapted at all; Williams is listed as having written some notes/introduction.)
1953 version, 312 pages: http://www.worldcat.org/title/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-with-16-full-page-i...
1979 version, 312 pages: http://www.worldcat.org/title/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/oclc/71398203&r...

It looks like this series might need some very careful work, in order to combine/separate and reconstruct versions of the series accurately.

44rsterling
gen. 29, 2012, 1:09 pm

What's the relationship between Great Illustrated Classics (as released by Dodd, and/or by Baronet) and Moby Books Illusrated Classics?

http://lostinthecloudblog.com/2010/08/19/moby-books-illustrated-classic-editions...

Are these two different publishers? Two different imprints of the same publisher (e.g. hardback vs. paperback)? Are the adaptations the same across GIC and Moby?

45Collectorator
gen. 29, 2012, 1:20 pm

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

46rsterling
gen. 29, 2012, 1:23 pm

Hmm, more detective work on Moby and GIC.

One blogger claims that the Moby books have been repackaged as GICs:
http://www.mtannoyances.com/?page_id=148
"the first works I can remember reading were those wonderful pint-sized Illustrated Classic Editions adaptations from Moby Books.
Incidentally, those ICE volumes still exist today, although they have been co-opted by another publisher, enlarged, placed in hardcover bindings, and sold under the series name Great Illustrated Classics. (I still own all of the original volumes.) "

But then, Great Illustrated Classics existed long before the 1970s, which is when the Moby Books seem to have started coming out. There were GICs at least as early as the 50s.

So, I wonder if the sequence of events is something like this:
-- original series of GIC (hardbacks?) put out in 1950s by Dodd, Mead, and reprinted again in the 1970s.
-- (new?) adaptations commissioned as Moby Books Illustrated Books in the 1970s, put out by Moby Books, which is somehow linked to Playmore publisher.
-- from late 80s/1990s and beyond, Playmore or Playmore/Waldman, via the Baronet books imprint, rereleased a GIC series, possibly using some of the adaptations from Moby Books.

Dodd ceased publication in 1989. I'm not sure what the relationship is between Dodd and Playmore/Waldman/Baronet, but somehow the latter aquired the GIC branding. But I think the content of the new Baronet GICs may be different from the Dodd GICs, and the Baronet GICs may be a repackaging of the Moby Books.

More checking would be needed to establish the relationships for sure, to figure out which ones need to be combined and separated.

47rsterling
gen. 29, 2012, 1:26 pm

45 - my focus was to get the GICs out of the Main Works

Thanks; that's definitely progress. It's great to get these adaptations separated from the original works on which they're based.

I guess we may need to explode the GICs more at some point, to further separate the old and new versions. But at least they aren't cluttering up the original works.

48Collectorator
gen. 29, 2012, 1:32 pm

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

49keristars
gen. 29, 2012, 1:33 pm

Are the GIC illustrated on every single page?

I read a Moby version of The Wizard of Oz as a kid that was more pocket-sized than the GICs I was used to, and was actually watching this thread to see if someone would solve the mystery of why it was a different format, and why the Oz book had pictures on every page but I don't recall the GIC of Jekyll & Hyde that I owned having pictures on every page. Which seems to have just been answered.

I think the Mobys might be further abridged to reduce the wordcount, if the GICs don't typically have an illustration on every odd-numbered page.

50rsterling
Editat: gen. 29, 2012, 1:35 pm

More detective work:

A 1994 court case, where Waldman/Playmore sued another publisher for republishing Waldman adaptations, gives some background on the Moby/Waldman/Playmore/Baronet line of GICs:
"Waldman and Playmore began selling the softcover line of books called Illustrated Classics in 1979, and introduced hardcover versions of the same books called Great Illustrated Classics in 1990. There are thirty-six titles currently in print in the softcover series and thirty-five in hardcover. Waldman and Playmore sell the books to retail outlets such as discount department stores, toy stores, drug stores and book stores."
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/43/775/553144/

So more and more, I'm thinking that maybe there's no relation at all between the Dodd Great Illustrated Classics and the Waldman/Playmore/Baronet Great Illustrated Classics (formerly Moby Books Illustrated Classics), except the series name.

51rsterling
gen. 29, 2012, 1:49 pm

Also, I think some of the original Dodd Mead GICs (which I've traced back now to the 40s) may not have been abridged/adapted. It's hard to tell.

52rsterling
gen. 29, 2012, 1:52 pm

The original Dodd Mead GICs do look pretty different:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B000VBDKEG?ie=UTF8&t...

53rsterling
gen. 29, 2012, 2:23 pm

Yep, I'm finding more and more evidence that suggests the original Dodd Mead GIC series was unabridged, with just a few added illustrations and an introduction. (Which is to say the original Dodd Mead GIC series would be, in LT's term, a publisher series; on the other hand, the new GIC series put out by Moby/Playmore/Waldman/Baronet/Abdo is adapted, and definitely a series.)

So if that's right -- and it could stand a bit more checking, especially if anyone can get their hands on a copy of one of the Dodd Mead books -- then we need to try, as best we can, to separate out the Dodd Mead GICs from the new adapted/children's GICs, and then recombine the Dodd Mead GICs with the full original work. That will require looking in people's catalogs to see the date and publisher of their edition, and matching that with the editions page. Typically the older Dodd Mead books don't have GIC in the title, unless in parentheses added by Amazon; it also looks like there are many fewer Dodd Mead editions than the newer adapted ones, so it might not be as much work as it seems at first.

54aulsmith
gen. 30, 2012, 8:48 am

I am relieved to find out that the Dodd Mead books were not adaptions. Thought I was going to have to go re-read a whole bunch of books.

I have a very clear memory of discovering that DM GIC edition of The Man in the Iron Mask was an abridgement of The Vicomte de Bragelonne from a note on the t.p. verso and deciding to wait to read the whole thing (boy, was that a mistake). However, I suspect that The Man in the Iron Mask had already been introduced as an English abridgement of The Vicomte and that DM was just republishing that in it's entirety.

I tried to check what I thought were DM GIC that we owned only to find they were all different illustrated editions, so I can't be of any more help at this point.

55Collectorator
gen. 30, 2012, 11:39 am

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

56rsterling
gen. 30, 2012, 12:08 pm

55 - Well, we can do some of them, if the Dodd Mead versions have distinct titles. We'll have to investigate in members' catalogs, though, to see if they do have distinct titles.

For instance, the title "The adventures of Huckleberry Finn. With 16 full-page illus., descriptive captions and introductory remarks" is a Dodd Mead edition. Also, since they're older, the Dodd Mead ones are less likely to have ISBNs, so that gives as an idea of some of the title versions to investigate. It will take some cross checking across member catalogs, editions page, and worldcat.

57Collectorator
gen. 30, 2012, 2:08 pm

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

58rsterling
Editat: gen. 30, 2012, 4:05 pm

Yeah, they are few and far between.*

Here's one I found and separated out earlier:
http://www.librarything.com/work/12213638

Here's an image of one, which I linked to in post 52:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B000VBDKEG?ie=UTF8&t...

*ETA: The worry/risk, though, is that when unabridged copies are mixed in with the adapted work, someone with the unabridged copy could more easily combine the adapted work with the original work. I know this isn't supposed to happen, but people don't always know what they're doing, and also people who don't know what they're doing are more likely to combine first than separate first and then combine.

59Collectorator
gen. 30, 2012, 5:30 pm

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

60Collectorator
gen. 31, 2012, 9:44 am

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

61jjwilson61
gen. 31, 2012, 9:58 am

60> Is that because the books in the series are abridged or rewritten? If so, I suggest you say that in the series description.

62Collectorator
gen. 31, 2012, 10:25 am

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

63jjwilson61
Editat: gen. 31, 2012, 10:35 am

Ah, I never really thought about it. To me Reader's Digest is the name of a magazine I've seen around since I was a child but never really bothered to analyze the component words in the title.

ETA: Have you ever given any thought to what tribune is supposed to mean in the Chicago Tribune?

64Collectorator
gen. 31, 2012, 11:12 am

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

65jjwilson61
gen. 31, 2012, 11:33 am

I have no idea. I'm just making the point that sometimes people just accept the proper name of something without thinking about what the words making up that name really mean (like in Reader's Digest) especially when they've heard that name since childhood.

66Collectorator
Editat: gen. 31, 2012, 12:17 pm

Aquest membre ha estat suspès.

67lorax
gen. 31, 2012, 12:23 pm

65>

To complicate matters, "digest" also refers to a magazine size -- the size of Reader's Digest, not coincidentally. (Wikipedia claims that the magazine gave its name to the size, but it's easily possible for someone to assume the arrow of naming is the other way around.)

68rsterling
gen. 31, 2012, 12:52 pm

I certainly wouldn't have assumed that the Reader's Digest Best Loved Books were abridged. They might simply have been books the magazine selected and decided to republish.

If all "Reader's Digest Best Loved Books" are abridged (and there seem to be several lists of these, for adults and children), then they need to be separated out from the original works, and then once they're separated, yes, they would be a series, assuming the abridgment is exclusive to the RD imprint.

692wonderY
des. 24, 2013, 11:18 am

Malvina G. Vogel = Evil M. Gal vanGo

The butcher of classics.

Working up a serious dislike for her.