Folios shown the door

Have any devotees bought FS books only to find they tire of (some of) them?
In the past year I've given away Mrs Dalloway, without having read it (I'll buy an Everyman instead). The FS book was just a little too pretty, and the spine quite fussy - all impressions I acquired after buying, unfortunately.
Anyone else discard FS books in an access of design fatigue (instead of damage)?

Quick, somebody bring a scotch over here!

My slipcased family have seen many parts of my small London flat other than the traditional bookshelves as I have attempted to stretch modest architecture to accommodate an immodest number of Folio offspring, but I have never shown a single child the door because they were too pretty! The adoption agency at 44 Eagle St would be mortified.

> 3
The Dalloway was scrawny and underweight, and didn't fit in with the fatter members of my collection. I'm sure it has found a loving foster home - I gave it away in charity sale.

I know a parent is supposed not to have favourites, or at least to have the grace not to mention them if they do, but if in a moment of weakness I were to confess a bias, I'd stop the ears of my dear sweet Clarissa and whisper that I perhaps prefer the scrawny kids as they fit in so much more easily.

The horror; the injustice of the act!!!

ETA: to add the appropiate semicolon for gasping breather

i think, if held at gunpoint by a Folio Thief,I would give up my Kafka set, which is currently on a bottom shelf, near the floor; paper sides and a miserly 6 illustrations per novel

OK if a gunman demanded my Kafka set, I suppose I'd begrudgingly part with it, but I'd immediately order another one to replace it as soon as he'd gone and I'd had a petulant cry. I simply love Bill Bragg's illustrations and binding designs for all four volumes - one of my favourite standard Folio sets. Surely seven (six plus frontispiece) original illustrations for each of the novels and nine illustrations for Metamorphosis - for an average of 260 or so pages per book is quite reasonable?

I'm not especially fond of my 1994 edition of Portrait of Lady which is rather charmless and sports a couple of suspect light stains on the spine. Also, am willing to part with my 1986 edition of The Mill on the Floss which doesn't match the other three George Eliot books I have. I might want to trade in my entire George Eliot collection altogether mind you, since I believe I read on one of the threads there are more recent editions with much nice bindings.

>8 cronshaw: I'm developing a serious issue with paper sides, which has affected my choice. I also think that 7+ illustrations, plus frontispiece, for a c. 250 page novel should be about par. I'd be interested to see if anyone has the time/inclination to audit recent FS books re that issue, but my impression, un-scientifically, is that that is close to an average and thus the Kafka set, not including Metamorphosis in that specific production , are lacking in that aspect; each to his/her own etc.
BTW, I like this general mild January discontent, seems somehow seasonal and good for the soul

Getting rid of Folios? What's the matter with you all? Is your treatment beginning to work, or have you just taken leave of your senses?!! For goodness sake, reduce the dosage!

The "Cezanne by Himself" and "Degas by Himself" got rid of me. Both bindings completely separated from the pages before one reading. The 70's version of "The Vicar of Wakefield" had an unfortunate glued on title on a portion of the spine that separated from me with no pre-nuptial agreement in place.

However, "Mrs. Dalloway" 'till death do us part, you are mine, all mine, I tell you.

After reading it and finding it, personally, a little uninspiring, I've considered purging My Life And Times by Jerome, though I don't really feel a pressing need to do so as I have plenty of space after buying another bookcase, plus I will be buying fewer books (perhaps!) this year.

The FS book I dislike most is the FS Book of Carols, which has words but no music (making it useless) and irrelevant photos as illustrations.
I'll happily swap it for any FS book I don't already own.

I think the only Folio that I've given away was The Scarlet Pimpernel (which I found unreadable), but if I had to rescue my books in an emergency then anything illustrated with collages would definitely be last to be saved (not that I have many, they don't even get considered for purchase nowadays).
In fact you've inspired me Firumbras, now where's my Les Liaisons Dangereuses.....

I've given away books when I did not like the illustrations: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice (Hassall version). They were finely made books but just didn't resonate with me. It's easier now with the website to preview the illustrations before I commit; in the past with only one image (if that) to go by in the printed catalog, I made some mistakes.

That said, I bought a copy of The Greengage Summer on the secondary market sight unseen because I love Rumer Godden's writing, but the illustrations are terrible, amateurish-looking pen drawings. Hope I've learned my lesson now.

I have to admit that there is one Folio book I've given away. I gave Year Round Things to Do to my daughter to help with ideas for entertaining her young son. But I've just checked the Shed again today, and - would you believe it? - another has popped up in its place.

Perhaps reproduction is a Year Round Thing to Do?

Ah, I quite like the Greengage Summer illustrations. It's a book I came close to buying several times from the FS, then finally acquired last year through eBay for £5 all told.

I've yet to expel an FS book from the house for any reason, except that twenty-odd years ago, some time before I became a member, two or three early Folio volumes acquired secondhand - Trilby I think, and the first of all (which I'd not have known at the time), Tales from Tolstoy - fell victim to a stock reduction exercise when I sold a couple of hundred books to a local dealer. So I've not been passionately averse to any book's complement of illustrations, though I'm sure some have deterred purchase. Certainly some bindings prevent me from considering letting a book into the house at all: anything with inch-high lettering running down the spine, anything with a short and already utterly familiar quote from the book constituting the whole design of the front board.

> 20

Oh dear! The cover of the FS Leviathan is so very attractive!

I might even well regret giving it way in the future! Sometimes it's a question of finding the right context or companions for it in a bookcase. It's not simply a matter of co-ordination - I prefer contrasts of scale, colour, design - I don't understand even my own compulsions when it comes to arranging my books. But no amount of re-shelving could make Mrs Dalloway juxtapose nicely with the fatter, smaller, larger, or duller constituents of my collection (I speak of books, of course).
So it's the pleasing anonymity of an Everyman, for this novel, for me..

>9 Smiler69: Smiler, you may be thinking of the recent crushed silk bindings in which the latest printings of Middlemarch and Mill on the Floss were issued. They are beautiful, and I think very apt for Eliot, but I wonder as to whether Folio also plan to re-print Adam Bede, Silas Marner, Romola and Felix Holt in the same bindings? I worry a little as to whether it's a new trend that Folio is only producing the best known of certain authors' works, rather than providing a complete set as previously. We've recently seen this with Austen and Forster, with reprints only of one of two works in a new binding from earlier series of six or seven volumes.