Do You Own Multiple Copies/Editions Of The Same Book? (10/29/23)

[Marc]

Are there any books you have multiple copies/editions of (not including ones you wrote or contributed to)? If so, which ones, and why?

[Bill]

Marc and I are doing buddy reads of Ursule Molinaro's short stories. I happen to own duplicate copies of both collections as of a few days ago:

Nightschool for Saints, Second Floor, Ring Bell: 11 Short Stories
Thirteen: Stories

I was visiting a bookstore from my college days a couple years ago, and saw that second copy of Thirteen. I just felt like having a second copy of this obscure item, and also supporting the store.

I'd ordered my second copy of Nightschool by mistake. I dropped it off at a nearby Little Free Library, but still have both copies of Thirteen.

I also own two copies of Samuel Delany's Dhalgren. The text in my old 70s Bantam paperback is too small for my reading comfort these days, so I bought a later edition with a bigger font.

[Greg]

There are several works in translation I have multiple versions of because I like different different aspects of the different translations.

But in terms of having multiple editions of the same exact translation or the same exact text, I think that only happens when people give me gifts and those books are a sort of memory of the person who gave them to me.

[Marc]

Greg, different translations count. Let us know a few favorite titles if you get the chance to do so.

[Alwynne]

I have different translations of work by writers like Tolstoy. Multiple copies of old favourites like I Capture the Castle and Little Women, Olivia and work by writers like Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield - old leather-bound or clothbound copies bought in vintage shops as well as more recent paperbacks. I also have British and American copies of things like The Complete Claudine because American editions often have better quality paper. I also have various editions of old SF novels like I, Robot and Donovan's Brain because I have a few which are vintage paperbacks with lurid cover art that I've never used as reading copies because they'd fall apart. But cover art can often tempt me to buy a book I already technically own. I also like tracking the ways that covers and blurbs try to frame and position/reposition narratives. A novel by a South African writer whose highly politically-aware work was written during Apartheid but was promoted here as a family saga/romance, for example.

[Marc]

I think there are very few titles I have multiple copies of, but these are the ones that come to mind:

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler
I got sent a second copy during the Pandemic when I ordered a literary "grab bag" from Capitol Hill Books (a local used bookstore that chose them based on a few favorite authors I told them I liked; turns out that the copy they sent was a newer edition than the one I had and included 1 or 2 stories not in the copy I already owned; I still haven't read those new stories... )

Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
A professor recommended this and I probably spent more than a decade infrequently looking in random bookstores for it before I found a copy (yes, I know I could have just ordered it online). And then after I found a copy, I realized there was a collected edition of her writing that I'd happened upon dozens of times and didn't realize it contained this novel/novella. Haven't been able to get myself to get rid of the stand-alone edition.

I think the other multiple copies I have are all instances where I have an e-book version and a hard copy (most likely because one of the two was free). These include: The Makioka Sisters, The Arabian Nights, Chouette, Signs Preceding the End of the World, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, We Need to Talk About Kevin.

[Lark]

I have ever so many translations of Inferno.

I have maybe a half-dozen Iliads, it used to be more, and four versions of Beowulf that are unbelievably different from one another.

Often I end up with two copies, briefly, of a book. It happens when I’m in a bookstore and find a thought in my head like ‘oh people keep telling me I need to read this book’ and so I buy it only to discover I’d had that same thought and impulse before, about the same book, and a copy of it is already there waiting for me to read it on my bookshelf.. Most recently I became the owner of two copies of The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter, this way.

[Maggie]

Kristen Lavransdatter! I started collecting them when I first read this wonderful work at least 50 years ago.

[Jenna]

I often buy new translations or things I have read and liked especially of the Greeks by poets I like - Ted Hughes’ was my third and favorite version of Ovid for example. Bought and re-read many of the P/V translations of the Russians. Also with Lark on the many versions of Beowulf- the surprising variety of ways in to the work contribute to seeing the poem as a whole even without the access you would get as a native speaker.

[Tracy]

I have multiple translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Beowulf too.
I also have a first edition hardback, a heavily notated paperback and a kindle edition of Infinite Jest.
And a beautiful copy of The Hobbit, as well as my first, battered copy, and a reading copy. (Guess which one is the most valuable)

I’m sure there are multiple others, especially if I start digging through the kids’ boxes.

[LindaJ^]

I have been a member of the Library of American since it began sometime around 1980. Accordingly, I have many books that are also included within the hundreds of volumes of LOA books. For example, the LOA has published all the works of Elmore Leonard, Kurk Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, John Steinbeck, Theodore Dreiser, Joan Didion, and many more. I have some individual works of the authors the LOA has published in audio, kindle, and paper, so guess that may count as multiple copies!

I also have purchased multiple copies of some books by mistake, forgetting I had already ordered a book pre-publication or that a copy was already among my unread books. I do not keep multiple copies - I either give away or sell back to a local book shop for credit to buy more books.