Collector's Guide to the Spectacular Penguin Deluxe Classics Series | Beautiful Books Review

Hello booklover, and welcome to today's episode  of Beautiful Books, which is a guide to collecting the Penguin Deluxe Classics series. I know I  often review a lot of more expensive hardback books on this channel, but I do like to also  call out more affordable editions as well, and this is one series that I have  many books from on my own shelves. Now, there are well over a hundred titles  in this series, so what I’m going to do is just talk a little bit about the series  while I show you all

the covers in order of production because I quite enjoy seeing how  the designs have progressed over the years. For some of my favorite designs I’ll  do a bit of close-up, but if you are interested in any of the titles, I have made  a complete list of all the books that I put on my website which I’ll link below, and this  is where I have added in lots of important details like who wrote the introduction, which  translation is used, the cover artist, etc, etc. I thought I might add a bit of a gam

e to this  video which you can play along with even if you’re not an avid collector. So, see if you can  guess which titles have been the best sellers, which titles have different covers depending  on whether you buy them in England or America, which authors have the highest number of  their books represented in the series, and which book has been published with a  record number of 3 different covers. And then you can see if you’re  right as you watch the video! So this paperback series of ‘delu

xe editions’  includes many, many world classics, and each volume features wraparound cover art by renowned  comic artists, illustrators and graphic novelists. Like most paperbacks, the volumes are glue-bound,  but this is one of the rare paperback series for which Penguin actually do use acid-free paper.  All of the books in this series are very nicely presented with matte paper covers made of a  lovely dense card, wraparound art on French flaps (so it looks like a mini-dust jacket) and  deckle

d page edges. Penguin usually make use of excellent up-to-date translations for the books  in this series, and the volumes typically include extremely valuable notes and introductions by  distinguished scholars and contemporary authors. The books follow a mostly cohesive  size and presentation structure and the series overall seems to be primarily  under the design direction of Paul Buckley, but there are lots of variations in  different interpretations of the series design brief by the differen

t artists,  which makes for a really fun collection. There are also several sub-series within  the collection as well, such as the Graham Greene Anniversary Centennials, the Couture  Collection by fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo, the Penguin Threads Children’s Classics, and the  Graphic Deluxe Edition titles which feature covers by renowned comic artists. Now, I have a lot  of fine press editions of the classics already in my library, but I find these paperbacks useful  additions as well becaus

e of their affordability, great notes, and how easily  portable/lendable/annotatable they are. Sometimes you not only get different cover  designs for different countries but also even different experts write the scholarly notes  depending on which country it was printed in, which i have to say rather surprised me. Because the series features such well known  classics, the cover illustrators have been able to seize a creative freedom to break  the conventional rules of cover art design. This is

one of the reasons that the covers for  this series are so striking – the artwork choices include bold and dramatic interpretations, as  well as simple but coy designs. Being Penguin publications, the titles do skew heavily to  your typical English classics, but there are also classic volumes from other cultures featured,  and the translations chosen are always top notch. There are sure to be a few titles in the  collection that you haven’t yet read. The comic book cover designs in this collecti

on  are quite an arresting contemporary interpretation of the classics, and I think they do an  incredible job of reminding the reader that some of the works that we now consider  “classics” were considered trashy, or humorous, or perfectly relatable, or even completely  outrageous at the time they were first published. The pairing of comic artist with the contents  has obviously been done with great care, and the cover art style  complements the novels brilliantly. I'm going to go quiet for a f

ew minutes now  while you just enjoy the art but naturally I'll keep popping back in with comments as we go. so I want to call out this group of novels  here, which is known as the Couture Collection, which is a set of iconic novels that were  “dressed” as it were in watercolor, pencil or ink by acclaimed Cuban fashion illustrator Ruben  Toledo. They were released in 2009 and 2010. I love the slyness of the character’s faces,  and I think the covers manage to capture both the period feel of the

novels as well as a modern  haute couture vibe. Ruben has said that he hadn’t read the novels before the cover assignment,  so he came to them fresh and visualised them as animated movies in his head as he was reading.  He then created these beautiful evocative abstract images in order to create a cover that draws  in readers across different generations. The cover for the Kama Sutra is very much  not-safe-for-work – not at all what you’d expect on a typical Penguin novel, and the illustrator  a

ctually created an entire alphabet to go with it. This is another collection that I want to  highlight, the Penguin Threads Collection. The books in this collection are  romantic and child-friendly classics that feature cover art that was originally  hand-stitched using needle and thread, then sculpt embossed on both front and inside  covers for a textured, tactile reading experience. I've included a few images of both inside and  outside covers because they're really cool. The first three cover

s were by Jillian Tamaki,  and the second three are by Rachell Sumpter. Okay, we're getting close to the end  - how did you go with your guesses? The best sellers have been the Penguin Threads  and the Couture Collection that I highlighted earlier - in fact the Penguin Threads Emma and  the Picture of Dorian Gray from the Couture Collection are both currently out of print.  The titles that have different covers and introductory notes depending on whether you  buy them in the US or the UK are Sen

se and Sensibility and Persuasion by Jane Austen, as  well as Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Super annoyingly and irresponsibly they  have the same ISBN so you really have to be careful when purchasing if you're doing  it online if you're after a particular cover. The book that has had three covers  is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, but American readers have to be a  little careful here because in the UK publication of Little Women was split over two  volumes so British editions of t

he first part (which is called Little Women)  may seem incomplete to you. The final question - which was which authors have  the highest number of their books represented in the series - has a few different answers. Jane  Austen is always a good guess here and if you consider the fact that the Penguin Deluxe  Classics series includes a volume called The Complete Jane Austen, you could say they've  published all seven titles. But strictly speaking, there have only been four individual volumes plu

s  the omnibus, giving you a total of five books. The Graham Greene Centennial Collection, published  early on in 2004, actually features six of his novels. But in fact, on track to beat them all  is Proust. In addition to his collected poems, we also have his seven volume masterpiece In  Search of Lost Time. However this collection features a completely new translation, and  so far only five volumes have been published starting in 2004, meaning he is presently still  tied with Graham Greene for

the number of books. However, the sixth volume is due in January  2021, and we also have the seventh volume to follow at a later date. But i'm happy to call you  a winner if you picked any of those three authors. There are also a couple of fun  new volumes due out shortly, and I'll add these to the end of the reel. I hope you enjoyed this trip through all the  covers in the series. I really think it's such an interesting collection of designs! I'm sure  there are one or two cover designs that t

ickle your fancy, and I'd love for you to share them in  the comments. There's also a really interesting volume that delves into the cover design of this  series and several others called Penguin Classics: Cover to Cover which i really enjoyed reading,  and can recommend if you like that sort of thing. As I mentioned earlier, I'll link below to my  list of ISBNs and other details because there's too many to fit them all in the description box.  Please do hit the like button if you enjoyed the vi

deo, and if you're new to the channel double tap  the bell and subscribe if you want to be notified about any of my future videos - my annual  Christmas collection is coming up soon... 'Til next time, bye! please do hit the like button if you enjoyed  the video and if you're new to the channel double tap the bell and subscribe if you  want to be notified about my future videos my annual best of you review is coming up soon  and that's always a lot of fun till next time bye