For those of us who have a lot of time on their hands this summer:
What's one classic book when you can own 1,082?
By Patrick T. Reardon
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 1, 2005
The first question my wife would ask -- well, the first after "Are you crazy???" -- would be about bookcases.
The for-sale collection of Penguin Classics, all the books ever published in the 59-year-old series, is amazing on many levels -- 1,082 books available through Amazon.com for just $7,989.99 (shipping is free).
We're talking 19 titles by Charles Dickens, 47 titles by William Shakespeare, five by Cicero, six by Edith Wharton, 16 by Thomas Hardy, one by St. Teresa of Avila, one by Ulysses S. Grant and seven by the Bronte sisters, to say nothing of four versions of "The Illiad" and three of "The Aeneid."
It's a crash course in Western Civ, and all at a savings of more than $5,000 compared with the price I'd pay if I bought each of those titles separately. What a deal!
Not that I'm the target audience for this literally weighty (700-pound) collection, which went on sale earlier this month exclusively, for the time being, on the Amazon Web site. "It's aimed at people who have disposable income," Penguin spokeswoman Maureen Donnelley told me. I think she meant "a lot of disposable income." She added, "We're also after institutions."
And, already, there have been buyers, although Donnelley wouldn't say how many. On Sunday night, the collection was ranked about 636,000 on Amazon, but, by late Wednesday, it had jumped up to 93,697.
By my rough figuring, you'd need about seven large cases to hold the collection and, of course, the wall space and floor space for them as well, something that's in short supply in our family's apartment. So -- don't worry, dear -- I'm not buying.
Still, Donnelley noted, "It would look impressive."
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preardon@tribune.com
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