My Penguin Classics & Oxford World Classics Editions - Mar. 2020 ✣ Bookshelf Tour 

☞ Join the new Pontus Presents Discord-server! discord.gg/MGeNsHX

My thoughts 😊 1. Most of the book publishing world is divided between the Big 4 - Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, MacMillan, and Hachette. Along with many smaller publishing houses. a. Hardbacks. For relatively affordable and good quality hardbacks with a large library of classics, my favorites are Everyman's Library and Modern Library, both of which, for better or worse, are owned by Penguin Random House. Of course, the Folio Society produces the very finest and most expensive hardback or cloth classics. b. Paperbacks. For the same in paperback, my favorite is the Penguin Classics Deluxe, but it currently has a small library. Around 100 to 150 titles at this point. I think it's the best in terms of aesthetics and quality for a paperback though. However, for even more affordable paperbacks, I'd pick the Penguin Classics series and the Oxford World's Classics series. I think both are generally better than other popular paperback series when it comes to the classics (e.g. Signet, Bantam). Oxford World's Classics is owned by Oxford University Press, one of the world's largest university publishing houses. 2. Regarding Penguin Classics vs. Oxford World's Classics (OWC). Here are several factors to consider in choosing between Penguin and OWC: a. Translation. If the book wasn't originally written in English, or at least in an English that's understandable to contemporary English readers (unlike, say, Beowulf or The Canterbury Tales), and if one can't read another language, then a good English translation is a necessity and indeed it can be utterly crucial in comprehension and enjoyment of a book, for some translations are better than others. Broadly speaking, a translation can err toward one of two extremes or sides. Either toward the side of being more formally faithful to the original text, which is often good for capturing the literality of the source language such as its word for word metaphors, but often at the cost of wooden or stilted or simply strange or puzzling or incomprehensible language. Or toward the other side of being more functionally faithful to the original text, which is often good for capturing the original meaning and subtleties and nuances in an idiomatic and even stylish fashion, but often at the cost of losing structural or syntactical significance. For example, consider the English phrase "to have a frog in your throat". This phrase makes perfect sense to a native English speaker. And it would be accurate to the English in a literalistic way to translate "frog" as "frog" in another language like French ("grenouille"). However, if it is translated as "frog" in French, it would not entirely make sense to a French only speaker. In French, one would instead say "chat" which is the French word for "cat" in your throat for the same meaning as frog in your throat in English. A translation would lose the literal English word "frog" by substituting it with "chat" or "cat" in French, but the translation would gain in meaning by making the phrase comprehensible to the French speaker. Of course, one can reverse languages too. In other words, if the English only speaker is puzzled why one has a cat in their throat, then the French only speaker would be just as puzzled as to why one has a frog in their throat! It cuts both ways. And it's almost always if not always a tug of war between which extreme or side a translation wishes to err toward - formal faithfulness or functional faithfulness. That is, accurate to the grammar and grammatical structures and so forth (form), but less idiomatic and comprehensible, and perhaps less clear and natural sounding and stylish as well; or idiomatic and comprehensible and readable and often even artistically stylish (function), but less accurate to the grammar and grammatical structures and so forth. It's almost always if not always impossible to capture both perfectly, for there's typically always something lost in translation; the translator is a traitor, as the Italians say ("traduttore, traditore"). Perhaps somewhere out there such a perfect translation for a work exists, but I'm unaware of it if so. Getting back to Penguin vs. OWC translations. I think the choice here is more or less equivocal. Sometimes Penguin has better translations (e.g. The Count of Monte Cristo translated by Robin Buss is better than David Coward's translation in OWC), while other times OWC has better translations (e.g. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea translated by William Butcher is better than Penguin's translation by David Coward). We have to evaluate a translation on a case by case basis since it depends on the specific book in question. b. Introductions. Both Penguin and OWC can have good or bad or average introductions. In general, an introduction can be done one of two ways. First, a more or less boilerplate kind of introduction or an introduction that follows a certain template that any literary scholar of the work can write (e.g. an introduction to a Sherlock Holmes book might start with a brief biography of the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, how he began to write, what made him famous as a writer, involve a history of Sherlock Holmes as a character in the context of detective or crime fiction, trace its influences as well as what it influenced in later novels, perhaps talk a bit about Sherlock pastiches, and so on, and end with a popular quote like "The game's afoot!"). These introductions are literally introductions which help introduce and situate a reader unfamiliar with the book to the book. It gives one a broad background to understand the book, but it's not deeply analytical. The second way to write an introduction is almost the opposite. An introduction that's a trailblazer. An introduction that breaks new ground and gives new insight into the book. If done well, the introduction itself can even become a work of literature that's widely known and widely cited. In this respect, the introduction doesn't provide much of a broad overview of the book, maybe just enough to move on, but it dives deep into literary criticism and analysis. c. Notes. Typically it's either footnotes or endnotes. Both Penguin and OWC have done both footnotes and endnotes, I believe, but Penguin usually tends to favor footnotes, while OWC usually tends to favor endnotes. I prefer footnotes, but others may differ. Both Penguin and OWC can have good, bad, or average notes in terms of content. It just depends on the specific book in question. Also, it's worth noting (no pun intended) that different scholars sometimes write different notes for the same book, depending on US or UK versions of the same book, for example. Sometimes this is also true for other factors like cover art. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe there are copyright, royalties, and/or other legal and financial concerns that publishers need to consider across continents. d. Supplementary material. I think this is where the differences between the two publishers really stand out. OWC usually seems to provide far more supplementary material than Penguin. Penguin might do so better than OWC in some of their books, but OWC is more consistent than Penguin in doing so for most of their books. I'm thinking of material like appendices and bibliographies and so forth. This is where OWC tends to shine brighter than Penguin. That said, sometimes I only want a minimalist edition. A bare bones book. Just give me the text and a few helpful notes and let me come to my conclusions via my own interpretations. In this case, the Penguin would be preferred. In fact, sometimes it may even be overwhelming to have additional material. Anyway, in the end, it depends on one's purposes in reading a book. What one wishes to get out of the book. e. Book quality. Factors like cover quality, paper quality, binding quality. I think the quality of each of these for most Penguin and OWC paperbacks is going to be more or less equivalent or comparable to one another. Both Penguin and OWC editions are meant to be affordable paperbacks that can be read a few times at most, then discarded. It's not like the cover of either Penguin or OWC is matte paper made of dense card, neither has French flaps let alone dust jackets, I'm not sure if the paper is even acid free in either, and (like most paperbacks) the binding will be glue-bound in both Penguin and OWC. That said, if I had to choose, it seems to me based purely on anecdotal evidence from my own experiences and friends and others that OWC is slightly better in terms of overall quality than Penguin. OWC paper feels better to touch than Penguin paper. As far as I know, both are glue-bound, yet the OWC binding seems to hold up better than the Penguin binding when opened. Probably the OWC would better bear more wear and tear such as repeated readings than the Penguin. But again, the difference here doesn't seem huge to me. Hopefully others who are far more knowledgeable and informed about book quality issues than I am can and will give scientifically objective details and specifics. To me, it seems close, with the edge to OWC if push came to shove, but it's probably negligible overall. (Continued...)

I loved studying the Presocratics at school (I love philosophy in general)! Great selection of titles

Great video! I love the diversity of themes in your library. 😍

John Milton's Paradise Lost is a fire from heaven!

Wow I'm really impressed by your pronunciation of Laozi.. especially when you speak English with an accent but when you say Laozi, no accent at all!

Oxford worlds classics are my favourite editions tbh

If you've actually read more than 5 or 6 of those in their entirety I will be impressed.

What an interesting collection !!!

Thanks... But I'm always furious, absolutely furious, that so many of these books are unavailable as sewn hardcover editions.

What a great collection.

Which paperback edition of Dracula is better? Oxford's World Classics or Penguin Classics?

Great video! I really envy your collection

These are two of my favorite editions! Thank you so much for sharing 😍💛 i have the same copy of Castle of Otranto and would love to get that same Polidori book, too 🙌🏼

Very nice Pontus!

Karl Marx and the Bread Book let's go! The Conquest of Bread and the Communist Manifesto are both great (kinda want to get the Norton Critical Communist Manifesto). I made a run at Capital Vol. 1 (the full version by Penguin) but didn't make it for whatever reason. Want to read some of his political writings first (got the huge collection from Verso) but I'm too caught up in other things right now.

Nice. Nice.

What is the best hardcover omnibus publishers for classics? Knickerbocker, Canterbury, etc.

hi, i also collect both Penguin classics and OWC, what do you thing of the Penguin book of the Undead is it good? is there descriptions from history in there such as classical/ dark ages & medieval? nice set by the way

Wow both of their covers look so good, i really like oxford's better I think though

we would like to see the font. If it's possible)

I really like the diversity of works you have in your collection. I'm guessing you have Homer's Iliad/The Odyssey in your collection, right? And if so, in what edition? I heard the Penguin Classics version with the Robert Fagles translation is really good.

This is so cool man! Super jealous of your collection! Have you read all of these as well?

Which one is easier to read? Spacing and font?

Hello Pontus. Could you tell me if the Hesiod translation in prose or in verse?

love this video!!!!!

How much did you find them on sale for and where were they on sale?

Do you have a preference between these two editions?

brother you should need to add shahnama

Which of the two would you say was of better quality in terms of the introduction, notes and design?

hi Pontus, Can you tell me about page quality of Oxford classics. Thanks

There's a lot of titles in penguin that I wish was in the Oxford classic's to.