Reading Classic Literature

[seanyyz]

I read classic literature occasionally but I am thinking of starting devoting a lot of my reading time on classics. Anyone else? And if you are a Kindle reader,
Is there a particular type of publisher of these books you prefer? I know there are some really cheap versions of 19th century literature but they seem to have been adapted to the e-reader format by an electronic mechanism that makes a lot of typos. They are already so cheap that even if I get the e-book from a name brand publisher I don’t mind spending a couple of extra dollars to have something nicely formatted.

I downloaded Madame Bovary by Flaubert to start this classics binge with and I plan on moving on to some Trollope. I might intersperse it with relatively light contemporary novels.

Thanks!

[pdurrant]

Standard Ebooks, Project Gutenberg and our own MobileRead Library are all excellent sources for classic public domain books. Most have been converted very well indeed.

If you really want to buy instead of getting free, I've bought from Delphi Classics in the past, and I was pleased with their product.

Buying any public domain book on Amazon is generally a bad idea. There are enormous numbers of editions, mostly from 'publishers' who have just repackaged whatever public domain copy of the text they could get their hands on - mostly the Project Gutenberg one.

For Trollope (as least his Chronicles of Barsetshire), I recommend the omnibus in the MobileRead library by HarryT, who carefully corrected all errors he could find in the public domain texts.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=53279

[issybird]

As for buying public domain books, I think you either go free or get a marquee publisher version such as Penguin or Oxford World's Classics if it offers sufficient added value such as copious annotations or a modern translation. Paying a few bucks for PD is money wasted, in my opinion. Overall, the quality of free pd is much better than it was several years ago. As in:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Buying any public domain book on Amazon is generally a bad idea. There are enormous numbers of editions, mostly from 'publishers' who have just repackaged whatever public domain copy of the text they could get their hands on - mostly the Project Gutenberg one.

I quite like Amazon's in-house free public domain books. It's been a long time since I've run into any issues with them; they are good, clean copies. The hardest aspect can be finding them, given Amazon's search engine. Goodreads is a handy portal if you click on the Amazon edition there or sorting by price can work. I like the one-step aspect of it; one click and it'll download without the nuisance of downloading/sideloading.

Other sources for quality PD are Faded Page (Canadian public domain) and Girlebooks which isn't adding to its library but has a good basic library of books especially by women authors.

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by issybird

I quite like Amazon's in-house free public domain books. It's been a long time since I've run into any issues with them; they are good, clean copies. The hardest aspect can be finding them, given Amazon's search engine.

I've had good success with Amazon PD books too, but yes, finding them is a pain. They don't come up at the top of a search. I usually search then sort by price lowest to highest and then that doesn't work sometimes.

[pdurrant]

If you can find the Advanced Search in books, you can select AmazonClassics as the publisher.

Amazon UK Classics by price


I wouldn't want to pay for straight public domain ebooks, but YMMV.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If you can find the Advanced Search in books, you can select AmazonClassics as the publisher.

Amazon UK Classics by price


I wouldn't want to pay for straight public domain ebooks, but YMMV.

I'm not talking about the Amazon Classics line for which Amazon usually charges, because that's nuts.

Originally Posted by issybird

Paying a few bucks for PD is money wasted, in my opinion.

I like their basic line of public domain books which are easily identified by their uniform cover, such as

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0082SSKYU/

I think the easiest way to access them is to search on the title at Goodreads and click on that edition, which will have a link to purchase.

[bdub]

One exception to using public domain books is translations. Sometimes more modern translations are better and contain more content. Some translations are edited, where the translator removed content.

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by bdub

One exception to using public domain books is translations. Sometimes more modern translations are better and contain more content. Some translations are edited, where the translator removed content.

Very true! Unfortunately we now have to contend with this disturbing new trend where people use AI to translate public domain books and then sell those translations (of generally dubious quality) on Amazon, so I’d personally be wary of recent translations of those classics.

[bdub]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

Very true! Unfortunately we now have to contend with this disturbing new trend where people use AI to translate public domain books and then sell those translations (of generally dubious quality) on Amazon, so I’d personally be wary of recent translations of those classics.

This is my go to for translations.

https://welovetranslations.com/

The other good news for translations is that older books are becoming available such as the sequels to Three Musketeers.