Ugliest Pre-Shiff era LEC books

This may be controversial, but we discuss at length those LECs that we love, those that represent Holy Grails, and those that have stellar choices in typography or illustration. I am curious to get input from others on some of the ugliest LECs ever produced, as defined comprehensively by a combination of exterior design, internal typography and illustrations. I realize this is very subjective, but I thought it would be interesting to see what everyone has to contribute. The reason I am restricting this to the Pre-Shiff era is because I personally do not like most of his books so it would be too broad a category for me if we were to include them. I realize others love his designs and art choices, some possibly even preferring this incarnation of the Club to the Macy era. They are free to start their own topics :-)

Since I think it would be splitting hairs to vote for the absolute ugliest Limited Editions Club book ever produced (too hard to select among those we dislike), I ask that people nominate titles for the category of "among the ugliest."

My first nomination is the Short Stories of Oscar Wilde from 1968. I acknowledge this was published at the height of the psychodelic era, but I seriously hate the illustrations in this book and I find the exterior design to be too plain and uninspired for a writer with talent as great as Oscar Wilde. Whoever was behind this production should be banned from future contributions to fine press publishing!

Other nominations?

I'm very tempted to say the 37 vols of the Complete Shakespeare, in a hopeless effort to reduce desirability and hence cost :o)

I suppose out of those residing on my shelves, the one I find hardest to love is Two Mediaeval Tales. I couldn't tell you why exactly, it's just I find the design a bit clunky, as if Macy didn't really know what exactly it should be, and Falls' illustrations are a bit too comic-strip for my taste. I wouldn't want to part with it though.

Great topic idea! In my collection, I would have to say that Huxley's Brave New World (1974) is the 'ugliest' or perhaps least inspired LEC I own. It has a turtleback binding identical to those found on elementary school level textbooks, and the illustrations are, in my opinion, a bit cartoonish.

I love psychedelia, so the illustrations in The Short Stories of Oscar Wilde don't bother me, but the cover material looks like it easily collects soil from all the copies I have seen listed.

>3 andrewsd:, agree on Brave New World. I have it, but feel it a monstrosity! In fairness, it is post Macy.

>4 busywine: Haha! Yeah, I really wish they had done something a little more fitting of this very important title. Turtleback binding and 'fine press' should never go together. It seems like books from the 40th through 44th series were hit or miss in terms of design quality. A Raw Youth, Sons and Lovers, and Death in Venice were all released around the same time as BNW and are far superior.

Antigone (1975). I like the side by side translation but despise the binding. I like more bite in my text, I'd never guess that this was a letterpress book. Again, post Macy.

George Macy Devotees' 'Ugliest' LECs Nominations

TITLE / NUMBER OF VOTES

Short Stories of Oscar Wilde - 1
Brave New World - 6
Antigone - 1
Call of the Wild - 1
Sartor Resartus - 1
Two Mediaeval Tales - 1
The Short Stories of Anton Chekhov - 2
The Light of Asia - 2
Moliere - 1
The Devil's Dictionary - 1
New Arabian Nights - 2
Waverley - 1
The Mill on the Floss - 1
Tales of Guy de Maupassant - 1
American Indian Legends - 1
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym - 1
Death in Venice - 1
The Overcoat/The Government Inspector - 1



From Brave New World - Illustrations like this make this it the first LEC graphic novel . . .

>6 EclecticIndulgence: Yes, Call of the Wild is bound in green flannel . . . I really don't like the odd fabric bindings found on some LECs. I mentioned before my dislike of The Stories of Anton Chekhov and its floral pattern sofa upholstery binding. Dostoevsky's The House of the Dead is bound in what feels like bed sheet cotton and hasn't aged well and has a couple of small discolorations. It was the lone title in a collection of LECs I purchased that showed any wear whatsoever; the rest were in fine condition. Did the previous owner get careless with just that one book, or is the cotton binding just that bad?

I like mine. Yep, not great but appropriately stark!

The least attractive publication of Macy's era could successfully be "Sartor Resartus", quite boring and mediocre book. It is so different from books issued before and after publication.

>8 andrewsd:

You left out HuxleyTheCat's nomination of Two Medieval Tales--a book which Macy termed "a rank failure." He apologized that when the Club first started, he was in awe of men such as Falls and was afraid to call them out and felt bad that because of "my craven fear, the members had to pay $10 for a very poor book." I don't care for it myself and feel that the illustrations are 2nd-rate Harold Foster, and that the font used i hard on the eyes. (It is self-consciously "medieval," as Morris' was in many of his Kelmscott Press books, which, philistine that I am, I find affected.) And, as long as I'm trashing it, I have to add my copy has held up less well than any other LEC I have, with front and back covers completely detached.

Is that a vote for "ugliest"? Well, I can't really call it "ugly," and I'd be hard-pressed to use that adjective for any LEC, but I have to agree with those that feel Brave New World never "coulda been a contendah" (anyone want to buy my copy?) In all fairness, there's something about this work that brings out the Ugly gene in book designers--I hated the shiny foil Folio Society edition, too. (I see they are bringing out a new edition in their new series--let's hope Huxley's book finally gets a decent treatment.)

Sartor Resartus--Macy said this was "one of the ten finest books the Club had published, yet one of the ten least popular."

>12 Django6924: Thanks, I added Huxley's missed nomination. Perhaps the 'something' about this work that brings out the ugly gene is its setting: futurism and art can be a calamitous pairing. I read an interview about far-future science fiction in which a celebrated author in this genre stated that he was "afraid" to write descriptions of futuristic universes because he was worried they would sound cliché or be viewed as caricatures. It seems that in an effort to create a futuristic style book (all plastic and fiberglass in the 1970s), BNW design interpretations have come off as such.

Despite the consensus about BNW, including my own, I still find the book enjoyable to hold and read. The font is nice, and the illustrations do depict scenes from the novel well despite their deficits. I guess it's more of a in-comparison-to-others determination.

Also, I just noticed that BNW is one of those '70s LECs that appears to be signed by the artist with a purple magic marker. I once complained on here about signatures in pencil, so you can imagine my disgust at this. The Stranger is also signed with this marker, and by the time mine copy was signed, the marker was going dry. >:-(

Keep them coming, I love the input from everyone. While I did not nominate it, I have to agree that Brave New World is among the worst. I hadn't thought about it in those terms before, but Andrewsd's comparison of it to a textbook is spot on. The one I am shocked to see among those named is Two Medieval Tales, but I'm assessing based on pictures alone since I don't own this one yet. I actually do like some of the more unusual bindings such as the flannel for Call of the Wild and the Chekhov (previously discussed elsewhere). I always find it interesting to find out which ones other people dislike and why. I was about to offer Fiona some cold hard cash for her copy until she ended her post with the predictable "I wouldn't want to part with it though." Funny things these LECs. Even the least desirable are nearly impossible to dispense with once you get your hands on an actual copy!

>13 andrewsd: "I once complained on here about signatures in pencil, so you can imagine my disgust at this"

Hmm, what would you think of Barnett Freedman's bloody (well, red ink) thumbprint on the colophon of War and Peace.

>14 UK_History_Fan: I really like the bloody thumb print! Things like that are great, it's the signatures I'm most concerned with. Despite the 'print signature pencil tradition' someone filled me in on in another thread, I'd much prefer a medium nib fountain pen any day.

>13 andrewsd: I added your vote to BNW. Glad someone else got my textbook comparison! That immediately came to mind when I first saw it.

The Light of Asia.

I have an Heritage Brave New World, and I've seen the LEC. I agree that the choice of binding isn't the best choice, but I happen to like the artwork for it. I think whoever suggested that they were trying to go "futuristic" with the binding is not off the mark. That being said, I still like the overall vibe of the Heritage edition.

Out of the 22 LEC's I own, picking my least favorite in terms of design is difficult! I would have to argue that on the whole I would nominate my 1960's Moliere. I don't find the book all that awe-inspiring, and Serge Ivanoff's talents are absolutely wasted on the style of illustration they proposed him to do. Plus, when compared to Steiner-Prag's underrated 1931 Tartuffe, it can't even come close. That's my vote!

>18 WildcatJF: I added Moliere, but can I get you to commit on a another vote for Brave New World? :-)

Like you, I don't mind the illustrations too much, they just aren't as high-brow as I'm used to seeing in an LEC.

>12 Django6924: "as long as I'm trashing it, I have to add my copy has held up less well than any other LEC I have, with front and back covers completely detached."

I find the cover the least objectional thing about it (apart from the revolting colour). My copy appears remarkably robust.

>20 HuxleyTheCat: " the least objectional thing about it (apart from the revolting colour)"

The cover design, with the embossed title is ok, but how do you like the color?

The spine and text block on mine are very sturdy--don't know what happened that made the covers part company (they were on by the skin of their teeth when I got the book (sans slipcase). but the first time I opened it....

Incidentally, that brings to mind another least-favorite designed LEC, Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary. The front cover on it has the hinge showing through the fep pasteover, but the rest of the book is absolutely pristine--maybe a one-off binding problem. Still, for such a unique work, the design of the book itself is remarkably uninspired.

"how do you like the color?"

As I say, I think it's revolting and I'll add horrid and ghastly.

I agree (and forgive me for having fun with your British spelling)!

Ah, I'm a bit slow on the uptake today! I assume the appropriate response amongst the colonials would be "Doh!"

My copy doesn't have a slipcase either.

19) No, I can't say that I'm that disappointed in it to place it higher than my Moliere. I'd like to keep my votes to books I'm very familiar with...which are my own and a few I've checked out from my school's library.

Anyone own the ugly one he or she has nominated ? Because I failed to find one that I would nominate in my inventory.

Ex-colonials, if you please!

>26 kafkachen:

Yes, I own all the ones I mentioned--and the ones others have nominated as well, except for Sartor Resartus.

I find it very interesting that of the 500-odd books produced by the LEC, we have remarkably few nominations for "ugliest" book. I was looking over my shelves trying to find other books to suggest, but I really didn't find any that fit the bill--aside from the aforementioned Devil's Dictionary. Quite an accomplishment, but what I think is really not the most remarkable fact is that so often on LECs the design of the books is so in tune to the work itself, that even when the designer errs (as in the case of the flannel binding on The Call of the Wild), it is in trying to find the most appropriate choices of materials and/or style to set the stage for what we are about to read. In this respect, failures are more often failures in execution more than concept.

>26 kafkachen:

Yes.

>26 kafkachen: Yes, I own Chekhov's Stories and Brave New World was the second LEC I purchased. Despite my nominations, I would never recommend that you don't buy them. Their contents are far more important than the design.

It's a helluva tribute to George and Helen Macy that so few nominations for Queen of the ugly buggers ball have emerged, and that only two of them have really been put forward with true passion (three if you count Brave New World but that's an out-of-competition entry for which the Macys can't be held responsible): the Oscar Wilde short stories and Two Mediaeval Tales.
I remembered the Oscar Wilde from Jerry's blog and looked back at his review. The book certainly looks of its age now, but then Wilde was a role model for the decade - the flamboyant clothes, the wit, the persecution by the Establishment for his sexuality that led to imprisonment and exile. Indeed, he could be said to have launched the 1960s - in 1960 he was the focus of two British feature films (played by Robert Morley and Peter Finch), and an episode of a 'Famous Trials' British television series (played by Micheál MacLiammóir, who also toured an award-winning one-man Wilde show). I don't think all the pictures are equally good, but some of them do have a splendid fin-de-siècle lushness - especially the "Boy Prince" and the strange frontispiece which appears to be paying homage to Ada "The Sphinx" Leverson, Wilde's steadfast friend.

So I've now ordered a copy (of the HP, not the LEC)! It may be kitschy but it's my kind of kitsch.

I must also respectfully dissent from the kicking given to the poor old Mediaeval Tales; perhaps out of sentiment as it's one of the first LECs I bought. Having opened so many better books since, I can see that it is odd rather than beautiful, typographically clunky and with illustrations foreshadowing a Prince Valiant strip. A misfired stab at mediaevalism it may be, but I admire the attempt (and Macy's chutzpah in making it so sound so attractive in the Monthly Letter). And a squarish book makes a nice change on the shelf. And the natural cowhide binding reminds me of my family's Jersey cows. So sentimental reasons, yes, but I also think it an infinitely more interesting book than the other LEC in which the two tales make an appearance, New Arabian Nights which amazingly manages to be both totally bland and obnoxiously yellow.
But that one can't be laid at the feet of the Macys either! It came out in 1976.

My nomination would be Waverley - I owned (and subsequently traded) the Heritage Press edition, and didn't warm to either the novel or the illustrations of Robert Ball. From what I have seen of the LEC edition, necessarily online, the binding is very plain.

>30 featherwate: "an infinitely more interesting book than the other LEC in which the two tales make an appearance, New Arabian Nights which amazingly manages to be both totally bland and obnoxiously yellow"

I agree, although it does include the splendid and unsettling "The Suicide Club." The binding is one of the least-inspired of the Connecticut Captivity period (and that's saying something!) though I have no problem with the color (oops, colour) yellow--it is just right for the LEC Looking Backward and the first edition Dracula. Even the usually reliable Clarke Hutton seems off his feed, and I'm not sure his illustrations for the Villon stories are an improvement over Falls's.

The 1960 "Oscar Wilde" film has always been a favorite of mine--a fine cast headed by Sir Ralph Richardson (brilliant as Queensbury's lawyer Edward Carson), and the unhappily-forgotten Dennis Price is overshadowed by Morley's colossal portrayal of Wilde. One wishes that a film had been made of his 1936 performance; 24 years hasn't diminished his skill, but the glamorous side of Wilde--so evident in the portrait Sarony made of him 12 years earlier--no longer comes across as it must once have done.

>32 Django6924: I agree with your description of the The Suicide Club. Oddly it doesn't seemed to have attracted many illustrators, unlike Jekyll and Hyde (tho that of course is a work of genius with a more coherent emotional tone than TSC). I know only of the 2007 FS edition that had quite attractive pictures by Michael Foreman (but not so attractive I'd want to pay the nigh-on $1500 being asked for the original wateurcolour of one of them) and a 1941 very limited signed edition (100 copies) printed at the Marchbanks Press, New York, with 18 etchings from aquatints by Karl Schrag. These have a haunting, oppressive air, almost Kafkaesque - possibly influenced more by what was going on in contemporary Europe than in Victorian London and Paris. They do include one lighter almost wistful picture, of RLS himself, which I now covet:

The book seems to hardly ever come on the market and when it does fetches a surprisingly modest $250 or so.

I hadn't realised Morley had played Wilde on stage - a trawl through newspaper archives suggests the critics were much more impressed by him than by the play - the NYT in particular gave him a rave review when the production came over to New York in 1938. He certainly looked the part!:


In 1936/7 he was on a roll, with two plays he'd written running in London, and he himself hailed for his performances as not only Wilde but also Henry Higgins, Pastor Manders and yet another larger-than-life LEC author:

Not to mention an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance of Louis XVI in the MGM super-production of "Marie Antoinette," MGM's costliest film since the original "Ben-Hur."

Okay, I've tried to update everyone's nominations since yesterday, but let me know if I've missed anything.

>30 featherwate: Featherwate, that's funny, I am now considering placing an order for the Oscar Wilde LEC as a result of this thread. It's "my kind of kitsch" as well. One man's ugly book is another man's treasure?

31 No worries, and welcome. I was disappointed in An Icelandic Fisherman simply because its shell had gotten dull, the ebay picture made it seem bright and new.

35) I happen to like a few of the illustrations for the Wilde Story collection myself. It's certainly a part of the 60's culture, that it is!

>38 the_bb: It took me forever to try and find the right angle for my library catalog picture of it.

There is a slight crease that has developed in the binding material near the 'B' on my copy. This is common with turtleback bindings; that hard, plasticy wrap around the boards bends up when the book is opened and comes loose after repeated use.

Added your vote! All votes are once again updated.

38) The Heritage edition does look a lot better than that, in my opinion. I can see the textbook comparisons quite clearly now.

I see a copy of Two Mediaeval Tales has just appeared on ebay. A mere snip at $100 BIN.

I had the opportunity to get Two Medieval Tales for $20 multiple times. The book was not in the greatest shape, though, so I passed. When I decided to give it a second go-over, though, it had sold. Perhaps I was fortunate in never granting it the opportunity!

>38 the_bb: I've never seen the LEC Brave New World. Wow, that really looks like a cheap textbook binding but it looks like it's holding up much better than my textbooks ever did.

Well it does seem that the editors and designers took a: brave new direction

From The Short Stories of Oscar Wilde, now possibly my third or fourth favorite LEC. I absolutely love these illustrations. I think I'm going to put on some Jefferson Airplane and read a couple of these stories.



I'm actually quite impressed with the build of this volume. The book has been stored in its slipcase and glassine wrapper and thus the cloth exterior is unblemished. The fonts are beautiful. I love the size, and the illustration reproduction is just superb.

Has anyone else bought a book as a result of this 'ugly LECs' thread?

I thought I would add my two cents to this discussion. As with 'busywine' and several other members, I own a large number (over two hundred) of the George Macy-era LEC books and I can make a reasonably informed assessment. Several LEC books have already received their just due, notably: Brave New World, The Light of Asia, and the Short Stories of Chekhov. However, I will now perform a public service for my 'George Macy Devotee' brethren and brethwomen (my attempt at being P.C. this week) and list several more true LEC stinkers, books of shockingly little imagination and taste. Here goes:

1. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. Unfortunately, my judgment may be a bit clouded by my sincere hatred of this book. It redefines the word "dull" and it provided several weeks of unpleasant reading when assigned to me in high school. Wading through it was only slightly less painful than having two wisdom teeth removed without benefit of local anesthesia. That said, the binding is done in a cheap, puke green woven fabric that looks as if it were stolen from one of the JoAnn Stores. The edges of the pages have a speckled appearance as if the book had been splattered with mud. Finally, the illustrations are mundane and unimaginative --- perfectly appropriate for this wretched novel.

2. Tales by Guy de Maupassant. When the slipcase is more interesting than the book binding you know you are in trouble. The binding is made of a very ordinary light blue cloth that simulates a pair of jeans that have been washed several hundred times. The top of each page is framed by a horizontal row of small geometric ovals which are annoying and totally superfluous. The watercolor illustrations look as if they were created by an arts class in one's local high school. In this case, "M" does not stand for Maupassant, it stands for Mundane.

3. American Indian Legends: Although the book spine is done in an attractive light tan calf (?) leather, the boards are covered in a paper that simulates cheap wooden veneer. Pity, because I sort of like the bright, stylized, slightly garish illustrations by Everett Gee Jackson and I love the actual Indian folk legends. Mixed call on this one but the book binding shouts "Cheap".

4. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by E.A. Poe. The slipcase is interesting with broad bands of royal blue and white. The lettering and an attractive sketch of a schooner with large masts done in a faux gilt seem to work and a give the slipcase a restrained, classical feel. Then, one removes the book itself to find that the binding has a white paper spine with black (rather than gilt) lettering and a dark, jet black shiny textured paper over the boards that have no visual link to the slipcase design. Again, the net effect is that the book screams "Cheap", not to mention that the binding was selected by someone who was obviously color blind.

5. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. This book is betrayed by a horrible choice of material and design for the book spine. The boards are covered in an attractive marbled paper which is then duplicated along the front edge of the slipcase --- very clever. The slipcase is covered in a finely textured red paper that has a flat sheen --- also very attractive. However, the binding is done in a cheap, bright red textured leather which clashes with the papers for the slipcase and boards. The killer is that the book spine has a garish geometric design in gilt superimposed upon the bright, shiny cheap red leather. Someone clearly wasn't thinking here.

P.S. Some of the more astute George Macy devotee members may be asking why I own a copy of 'The Mill on the Floss' when I detested reading it in high school. Unfortunately, in the midst of a febrile hallucination I queried whether I might appreciate this "classic" novel as an adult; perhaps I had missed something after all. I bought a copy on eBay for under $25 in fine condition and gave it another go. Unfortunately, even after 40 years have elapsed, it still sucks.

>48 dlphcoracl: I agree with your assessment of Mann's Death in Venice. Everything about that book is magnificent (especially the double-fold pages and paper quality) except for the spine, which slips into the '70s-era style from which it comes. There was a definite trend towards red leather during that period for some reason.

Great post. Your votes have been added.

Re-reading Bill Majure's brief history of the Limited Editions Club has reminded me that "pre-Shiff" isn't the same as "post-Macy", since neither family were involved for most of the 1970s.
This allows me to put forward another nomination: 1976's pairing of two Gogol stories, The Overcoat and The Government Inspector. I admit I haven't seen a copy in the flesh, but the images on the net suggest a deadly dull binding - the component colours of a World War Two camouflage jacket used in blocs instead of at random - and a truly ugly title spread that combines the wishy-washy (pale grey text over swirls of grey watercolour) with the hideous: GOGOL writ over-large in a brown bizarre typeface, the whole being painfully reminiscent of the sort of misconceived posters amateur dramatic companies enthusiastically plastered all over the place when home word-processors first replaced Letraset (dry transferrable lettering).
Neither binding nor title-spread convey anything about the book, which is surely a major design disaster and wholly puzzling given that the designer was the much-respected Charles E. Skaggs.
On the plus side, Saul Field's hand-pulled color engravings are striking; worthy of a better setting.

>51 featherwate: Thank you for helping me figure out what I should call the color of this book. If I ever go off to war, I'll take this with me for convenience. Here is the cover of the copy I own:

>52 andrewsd:
Hmm. Interesting. This is lighter than the on-line copies I've seen. More desert warfare - sand and oasis - than jungle!
And not so off-putting!

>53 featherwate: Yeah, I wouldn't say it is the worst design. It's just your typical mid '70s edition. I like having it. It doesn't get as much attention from me as others in my collection. The typography and layout are quite nice though. Plays can be tricky to format.

>53 featherwate: Well . . . now that I look at this book (The Overcoat / The Government Inspector), I must say that the illustrations are, am, interesting. They were made using some type of metal plate printmaking process that is long and drawn out in the ML.

This old thread was just linked in a more recent one, and I'd like to nominate Ah, Wilderness. Sort of surprised this one wasn't mentioned previously, as it seems there's little demand for it, multiple listings of decent copies $30 or lower. All the materials feel cheap, illustrations don't stand out, and the cover designs and spine do nothing for me. I only have it because it came as part of a bulk order with some other LEC plays.
I also agree with featherwaite saying The Overcoat as one of the worst. I bought a Fine/Near Fine copy at a local store because they gave me a good price. When I took a good look at it when I got home I put it on eBay and at least walked away from it a few dollars ahead.

>56 PBB:
Did it come in glassine with the ML?

>57 GusLogan: both did. Are you the swedish buyer?

>58 PBB:
I am! Glad you disliked it : )

3rd ugliest: The Overcoat/The Government Inspector (for all the reasons mentioned above)
2nd ugliest: The Ballads of Robin Hood - for sheer unimaginative selection along all design and literary dimensions
Ugly Winner - The Battle of Waterloo - when sloth and laziness meets editorial rip off - this is what you get. Shame. Shame. Shame.

Brave New World, with it cheap, glossy, tacky navy blue, aqua and orange binding deserves a place in this Hall of Shame.

>60 Sport1963: I wasn't familiar with this one so I looked up a few pictures. Handmade green marbled cover with dark green leather binding and gold lettering. I can see how it's not especially imaginative but the ugliest LEC ever?

>61 dlphcoracl: Completely agree!!! I have never understood the appeal of this one. But still, I own a copy.

>61 dlphcoracl: BNW does look like a cheap 1970s junior high textbook. Shudder-inducing.

>62 ExLibrisDavid: Yes sir. Personally, I will give a pass to books that tried but completely missed (like BNW...it's almost like an Ed Wood film...so bad that it's...well almost...funny). But when a title is produced just so the LEC could punch a ticket and collect the monthly subscription...that I cannot abide, and that's what "Waterloo" represents to me. Ironically, it was a title specifically cited by subscribers as an example of why they cancelled their subscription. In a way "Waterloo" can be viewed as the LEC's Waterloo. That title and the other stinkers lead to the death and subsequent resurrection of the Club under Shiff. And what a rebirth it was....

Then again, maybe I'm imposing a narrative where there isn't a narrative.

The 1970s were not kind to LEC subscribers! One of the common threads is Charles E. Skaggs, who is guilty of having designed The Overcoat, Les Pensees, The Golden Bough, and Flowers of Evil, four of the ugliest LECs I've had the misfortune of seeing. I "won" the Gogol, Fraser, and Baudelaire books in a large lot of LECs, and sold them to a Half-Priced Books for next to nothing. To be fair, he also designed Dracula, which is not nearly as ugly as these others. Still, he also had a hand in one of my personal least-favorite (though maybe not ugliest) LECs, the 1946 Canterbury Tales, with its garish illustrations typical of Szyk, whose popularity I will never understand. Flowers of Evil, with its awful illustrations that recall the "Joy of Sex", is one that I think should be sent to the Hall of Shame.

Brave New World looks exactly like the kind of illustrated 1970s book that they would give to 9th graders to read (and hate). Perhaps they were angling for a new market!

It's funny to me that this thread started with the idea that the OP (and probably others) excluded Schiff LECs because they would've been disproportionately represented in the list of "Ugliest LECs." I haven't handled every book from the LEC by any stretch, but off the top of my head, I cannot think of a Schiff-era LEC uglier than many of those mentioned above by others. Certainly, nothing as bad as The Overcoat or Brave New World comes to mind. Which Schiff book(s) am I forgetting that are as ugly as those above?

(This is all in good fun. It is proper and healthy to levy negative aesthetic judgments instead of universally heaping praise.)

>66 DenimDan:

Well,it is very tricky to make generalizations about "good" and "bad" when it comes to Art--especially book illustrations. I personally feel that many of the "illustrations" from the Schiff era are not really illustrations, in the way I think of illustrations. I'm sure there are many who see some profound relationship between Sean Scully's work in "Heart of Darkness" and Conrad's anti-colonialism--but I don't. It's probably better to say, "these illustrations speak to me and enrich my reading experience"--or they don't.

Your comment, "one of my personal least-favorite (though maybe not ugliest) LECs, the 1946 Canterbury Tales, with its garish illustrations typical of Szyk, whose popularity I will never understand" motivated this response because I'm glad you qualified the statement by saying it is your personal reaction. I think that of all the work Szyk did, his work on the Chaucer volume is his best, and the best I have ever seen for illustrating this work. I have lived with The Canterbury Tales of almost half a century, read it multiple times--in Middle English which formed to central core of my post-graduate degree--and believe only Szyk ever really caught Chaucer's tone.

For one thing, Szyk's work shows he really read carefully the descriptions of the characters and delineated them with almost microscopic faithfulness. I have felt some of the illustrators of other LEC works never really read the texts they are illustrating. We will pass over Matisse's work for Ulysses and take for example Ardizzone's frontispiece illustration(s)--for he redid them for a later re-issue--for Great Expectations; as a sharp-eyed and scholarly member of this group posted out in another thread, his portrayal of Magwitch bears no resemblance to the fugitive, muddy and shackled convict Dickens describes. There are many other examples one could point to, especially in the livres des artistes period under Schiff, but that's a different story.

Anyway, I am not a uncritical admirer of Szyk: I find his Rubaiyat illustrations very idiomatic and a refreshing change from the lush Romanticism of Dulac, Pogany and Robinson (likewise his Arabian Nights Entertainments). His work for Ruth is idiomatic, but for me a little too affected for such a simple, unadorned story. His Job fails outright in comparison to William Blake's engravings which miraculously capture the cosmic formalism of the most dramatic book in the Old Testament. But his Chaucer is for me, the perfect illustration of this earthy, satirical portrait of common folk in the Middle Ages.

Again, everyone will respond differently to book illustrations, and one can only ask, does the illustrator really understand what he is illustrating and is he faithful to the author's intentions?

>66 DenimDan:

Not sure what's so ugly about 'The Golden Bough'. The binding is plain but handsome or at least too simple to be ugly. The illustrations are forgettable but far from the worst I've ever seen and the printing is middle of the road LEC.

I love the LEC Shakespeare but the bindings specifically are hideous.

I like the LEC edition of Waverly. I have bth the LEC and HP editions. The binding on the LEC edition is rather nice.

Everyone hates on the Brave New World, but is there a better edition?

There are 2 folio society editions which are likely worse. (I don't have the LEC, I have both FS editions and don't really like either.)

>70 rogerthat2: I’m the outlier here. I don’t love it, but I appreciate it for what it is. The typography and layout are perfect to read, the book is sturdy, looks like new, and I find the illustrations not better or worse than other BNW editions - If anything they reflect Huxley’s time.

There’s also the Arete edition that got printed recently.

If we can go into the Macy era, I wouldn’t call it ugly, but, the colors used for the original binding of Bacon’s Essays was an odd choice. The Heritage Press edition from the early 1970s looks better to my eyes.

I am surprised nobody mentioned OMOO, every time I see a picture of the spine I think of how hideous it looks.

I now own Brave New World and it's different but I like it. It looks fine on the shelf. I bought it for half the price that the most recent FS standard edition goes for second hand.

>73 rogerthat2:
I think Omoo looks great. See https://www.librarything.com/topic/372198

>74 wcarter:
I second that. Always thought it was an imaginative and attractive design.

>74 wcarter: It will concede that it looks nicer in your photographs. A lot of copies seem to have more faded or worn spines. I find the spine label way too bold, but it does look neat with the covers folded out.