Completing Series

I just got a copy of My Antonia, and the Alexandre Dumas volume from the Library of Essential Writers series from my brother for xmas. The first book is from the Barnes & Noble Classics series. Now that I have them, I kind of want to complete the two series. Has anyone else experienced this? IDK, it just seems like having a single volume from these series sitting on my shelf would look kind of odd.

I got two books from the series "Bibliothek von Babel" for christmas, which is a series of 30 books with phantastic literature of 5 continents and 3 centuries, edited and commented by Jorge Luis Borges. It's a fantastic, beautiful edition, and of course I now want all of them.

I'm familiar with the problem. I've been known to finish buying series' of books even if I don't like the author that much, simply to be completist. It doesn't apply to me, however, for publisher series' like SF Masterworks, etc. Perhaps simply for the sheer practicality.

I'm fairly dedicated about completing a series as written by the author, eg Storm front less so but still reasonably dedicated about completeing a series where the books are all set in the same world eg Pern

But published series, where someone has chosen a random set of books and decided to publish them as a series. No. Not at all. I'm more interested in specific works than what a publisher decides is a series. They can mkae some very odd decisions as it is.

I would be careful before I started buying a series put out by a "publisher" like Barnes & Noble. My impression is that they are publishing classics because they can do it more cheaply than established main line publishers. Reminds me of WalMart merchandising which ends up hurting more than helping, IMHO. Also, I have found that series I purchased from Book of the Month Club has little to no value on the resale market for books. Disappointing.

So, perhaps a little research is indicated before embarking on a complete the series venture. Maybe none of the above issues are important to you. I know the B & N Classics look lovely, like the old leather bindings with gold inlays.

I'm OCD about completing series' by the same author. I've not come accross a publisher series yet which I'm glad about, because I'd probably feel the need to complete it too & it sounds like an expensive venture!

Thats part of what prevented me from doing it before. However, the most expensive volumes in the 'Essential Writers' series is $12, which if you ask me is quite affordable, and there are only about 20 of them I think.