Combining editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

[[deleted user]]

I was doing an inventory on my books and noticed, that this one edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (I own several different editions of this book) was not listed under Lewis Carroll as the primary author but the illustrator Helen Oxenbury. On the combine editions page I found the following librarians note:

"PLEASE DO NOT combine this batch with the rest of the Alice's Adventure in Wonderland lot! Separating editions specifically of Helen Oxenbury's illustrated work; those editions are exclusively translated versions from one to the other; it makes little sense for them to be mixed with the other 2k+ editions (by other illustrators or adaptors), making it harder to locate individual works."

I can relate with the problem of several thousands of editions, but isn't this going against the rules of Goodreads? Shouldn't all the different editions of a work be combined as long as there are no significant differences in the contents of the book? As far as I have understood a different illustrator does not count as a significant difference, or have I misunderstood something?

As far as I can tell, the only difference between this edition and other editions is just the illustrator, the actual story is same as always.

[Melanti]

I can see why someone might want that. Being able to get all editions of one particular translation or one particular narration would be really useful, for instance. But that's not the policy. If it were, it'd cause a ton of headaches, trying to track down illustrators or translators for every edition of every book.

One of the descriptions available on Amazon says it's the full text, as does one of the professional reviews, so it's not an adaptation by GR standards.

So, yeah, IMO, Oxenbury needs to be listed as just an illustrator rather than as Illustrator/adapter, and Caroll should be first, and this combined with the other editions.

[Melanie]

This came up in another thread recently.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[[deleted user]]

Thanks for linking that Melanie. So this separation is against policy. I just wonder that if I go through the trouble of recombining these editions, will they end up to be separated again by someone soon again? Maybe I should place a librarians note about this on one of the top editions?

[Melanti]

I would add a note to the most popular edition of the Oxenbury ones and link to the thread Melanie gave.

Since Rivka chimed in, that should end the debate.

[Ayshe]

The current "DO SEPARATE" on the librarian notes must be typo?

I came across it when looking at Robert Ingpen's combine page, he was still set as primary author on some editions despite them being combined with Lewis Carroll's Alice (this appears to be the case for some other illustrators as well) - it's best if the primary author on all editions is changed before combining.

[[deleted user]]

Ayshe wrote: "The current "DO SEPARATE" on the librarian notes must be typo?

I came across it when looking at Robert Ingpen's combine page, he was still set as primary author on some editions despite them being..."

If it was a note written by me then yes. Feel free to correct the typo!