[archived] single works published as multiple volumes

[Dustin]

I have come across several books that are one work but are published in more than one volume. For example, Feynmann's lectures on physics are usually sold as a three-volume boxed set (Amazon.com lets you buy them individually but I have never seen them sold like that in a book store). I have also seen a few novels that were broken up for certain publishings. Usually these will called Some Book, Vol. n but other times they will be given different titles. An example of this type is Stephenson's Baroque Cycle which was originally published in three volumes as Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World. Each of these three books was about 1000 pages long. Later, the Baroque Cycle trilogy was republished as a series of 8 books by breaking Quicksilver into 3 parts, Confusion into 2, and SoW into 3.

Should we combine in any of these cases?

IMHO, we should combine in the first two cases but I am unsure about the Stephenson case.

[R]

Hi. Where a series is available as a boxed set and as individual titles, it would be best to have both.

They can be treated like combined volumes such as 'The Early Spencer' by Robert Parker (ISBN 0140173641) which has three books 'The Godwulf Manuscript', 'God Save the Child' and 'Mortal Stakes' in one volume. These books are also available individually.

Another example is Douglas Adams' 'The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide' (ISBN 0517149257) which has 5 Hitchhiker books (and a bonus story) which are all available individually.


Happy reading!
Sriram