What are you reading? 2026

Someone had to start it! I just finished Adventures of Tom Sawyer and decided to move straight into the companion Benton illustrated Huckleberry Finn. This edition has an interesting editorial quirk by Bernard DeVoto who decided to reinsert a chapter that was in the original manuscript but excluded from first trade editions and put instead into Life on the Mississippi. This passage is differentiated from the main text by a slightly different type (transition occurs at page 120). Without reading the monthly letter or introduction, which I did not at first, you would have no idea and it just looks like really inconsistent press work. I usually refrain from reading intros and monthly letters until after I have read the book unless it is one that I am already intimately familiar with and I don’t fear spoilers or having my perception colored by a critic so immediately before diving in. This is also a monster introduction by DeVoto and it looked like a momentum killer. The type change bothered me for a day before I remembered the monthly letter usually explains such oddities.

Not the only time the LEC courted reader confusion/disappointment in the attempt to restore a writer's original vision. Their edition of Great Expectations, egged on by a remark made by George Bernard Shaw, printed the original ending Dickens had written, which was rather melancholy (I won't go into particulars as it would be a spoiler). Dickens' good friend Bulwer-Lytton convinced him the public would not be amused, so Dickens wrote the hopeful ending which was in the first and many subsequent editions.

Whether the reception from the subscribers was mostly negative, or whether it was GBS's own admission in his introduction that the revised ending was better, two years later when the HP edition of the book was sent out, the happ(ier) revised ending was the one used.

I am half way through the LEC All the King's Men. What a great story and edition! The signature from a Pulitzer Prize winner is an added bonus. Seems like $500 for this set is a very good deal.

>3 BuzzBuzzard:
Agreed! I paid 300 USD and felt like a thief.

Not a Limited Editions Club, but I just finished reading Henry James' "The Aspern Papers" which I liked very much--surprisingly so as I am not a great fan of James. For all his undoubted excellence, sometimes I find his prose style, and his overly uncritical admiration of European culture a little irritating. I had a difficult time making it through Portrait of a Lady and The Golden Bowl, though I thoroughly enjoyed The Ambassadors for its dry humor and Daisy Miller for its condensed working of James' American vs. European theme. "The Turn of the Screw" is a masterpiece and the LEC treated it appropriately; I wish they would have done "The Aspern Papers" as well.

>5 Django6924: The Folio Society released Aspern Papers in 1990 as part of the Folio Press Fine Editions series (1987-91) set of 20 books. Of the half I own, this is the only one illustrated with watercolours.

>5 Django6924: I felt that Henry James was a notable gap in my reading, so last year I read the LEC Washington Square, which is often recommended as a good starting point. I began it with some trepidation having heard so many negative things about James, but found it enjoyable, tightly written, darkly humorous, psychologically complex, as well as a little unsettling. It was interesting to read in the introduction that James had a very low opinion of the work and would not include it in his collected works. I think the LEC is one of their better editions from the period, and the binding and illustrations are successful in capturing the oppressive atmosphere.

I feel like I should tackle Portrait of a Lady next in order to get the full Henry James experience... for better or worse!

I'll definitely move The Aspern Papers up my reading list. The edition mentioned by >6 mr.philistine: is very nice indeed.

>6 mr.philistine:
I somehow missed that Folio Edition, and that was the period when I was buying from the Folio Society. I stopped shortly after Sue Bradbury retired and the Society went into a publishing area I didn't find compatible.

>7 GardenOfForkingPaths:
Yes, the Washington Square LEC is a gem and one of my favorite works of James. Lawrence Beall Smith did the best illustrations for Tom Jones (the Random House edition), and I really like his work here as well. Your description of it is perfect, and those qualities, especially the unsettling psychology of the characters, made it very adaptable to dramatic works for stage and screen: "The Heiress."

>8 Django6924: Interesting! I'll definitely need to find a way to watch "The Heiress". Thank you.

>9 GardenOfForkingPaths:

There is apparently a recent film titled "The Heiress" but it seems to have no relation to the James story at all. And there is a late 1990s film "Washington Square" which is a version of the story. But the version to see is the 1949 (?) version with Olivia de Havilland and Montgomery Clift. de Havilland won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance and she is very good indeed. But the picture's greatest asset is Ralph Richardson who is absolutely perfect as Austin Sloper.

>10 Django6924: Thank you, Django. There didn't seem to be any streaming options in the UK for the 1949 film, so I have a DVD on the way.

>7 GardenOfForkingPaths: Try "The Turn of the Screw". The story itself is quite good, and relatively clean prose for a James novel. Basis for the Nicole Kidman movie, "The Others".

Thanks >12 Sport1963:, I should do that. I have the LEC on the shelf, but have been dragging my heels about reading it for some reason!

>12 Sport1963: The Innocents (1961) I think, is a very good adaptation too, cowritten by Truman Capote.