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Mar. 8th, 2005 12:25 amMy birthday's in a few weeks and the handful of interested parties are demanding gift suggestions (I'm "impossible to buy for" so the surprise method's ruled out). The only things missing from my life at the moment are a couch and a bed: too big, too practical, too pathetic for a birthday. Long lists of books haven't worked well in the past. There are mistakes. There are redundancies. There are ones I was sure I'd get that I don't get and then pine for.
So I'm thinking of nominating an expensive book or two for people to pitch together for. I'd blackly sin for the early volumes of the Oxford Ibsen, or for Christopher Ricks' three-volume Tennyson edition, but these are just unfindable except on the mocking shelves of college libraries. Also appealing but nonexisting is William Morris' Earthly Paradise, in or out of his silly High German typography. And then there's Robinson's Collected Poems which probably goes for a dollar in some flea market I'll pass by twice a day until my death. And the Northwestern Melville poetry volumes that will apparently never be released. And the fifty other books that have somehow eluded me over the years.
Right so I can't have any of those. The only expensive, accessible books that interest me are the rival scholarly editions of Shelley, I'm finding. At any rate the available volumes thereof. Here's the choice: there's the Johns Hopkins Reiman/Freistat edition, unit two of seven, at US $85, of which I already have the first (US $9.98 and bless you Half Price Books), but which only gives a couple hundred pages of Shelley material, and that of the rather immature period (Queen Mab and the Esdaile Notebook poems), and which is probably textually more authoritative because it's coming out so slowly, but also has a shiny blue cover I don't care for, but it does continue a set I've technically got in on the ground floor for, but what am I OCD, but it does have the Esdaile poems I don't have, but I've read them and they're not so hot, but it does have Queen Mab which I'm fond of, but I have that in what fifty places already, but can I be sure those are TEXTUALLY AUTHORITATIVE?!; and then there's the Longman edition, unit two of three, at c. US $125 at amazon.com, with the third allegedly coming out in a month or so thus potentially solving the Christmas gift problem since I'm "impossible to buy for mwnyah mwnyah", but when do these things ever come out when they're slated to, but then these volumes are like a thousand pages each, but then most of that is foot-annotation that washes the text up to the top in desperate little five-line squashings, but then Longman books are so aesthetically pleasing, but really I have absolutely every poem in this volume, though I suppose not at this level of textual authority, which is however less than supreme Reiman and Freistat hint in their shorter and more methodologically complex and perhaps rigorous volume, but then the shipping costs from amazon are surely much lower than from Johns Hopkins which let's face it is a stupid name for a university even if two John Hopkinses really founded it together which strikes me as implausible even for Maryland, but then FreistMant even hint the Longman is merely an edition for Oh God college students, but then I don't have Laon and Cythna proper in my possession just various Revolt of Islams (the revised version) and maybe the incest specifics I'm missing are of high transformative poetic value, but then the Hopkins that I'm in on the ground floor for because of US $9.98 will reach that soon too, but by soon I mean what 2014 don't be silly, but Longman v. 1 is so far out of print as to be unpurchasable...
Plus I seldom read foot or endnotes and am quite attached to the Signet selection and my other paperbacks and am not the kind of person who thinks subtle textual changes do much to what's important in a great poem. Also I hardly ever read these days.
So I'm thinking of nominating an expensive book or two for people to pitch together for. I'd blackly sin for the early volumes of the Oxford Ibsen, or for Christopher Ricks' three-volume Tennyson edition, but these are just unfindable except on the mocking shelves of college libraries. Also appealing but nonexisting is William Morris' Earthly Paradise, in or out of his silly High German typography. And then there's Robinson's Collected Poems which probably goes for a dollar in some flea market I'll pass by twice a day until my death. And the Northwestern Melville poetry volumes that will apparently never be released. And the fifty other books that have somehow eluded me over the years.
Right so I can't have any of those. The only expensive, accessible books that interest me are the rival scholarly editions of Shelley, I'm finding. At any rate the available volumes thereof. Here's the choice: there's the Johns Hopkins Reiman/Freistat edition, unit two of seven, at US $85, of which I already have the first (US $9.98 and bless you Half Price Books), but which only gives a couple hundred pages of Shelley material, and that of the rather immature period (Queen Mab and the Esdaile Notebook poems), and which is probably textually more authoritative because it's coming out so slowly, but also has a shiny blue cover I don't care for, but it does continue a set I've technically got in on the ground floor for, but what am I OCD, but it does have the Esdaile poems I don't have, but I've read them and they're not so hot, but it does have Queen Mab which I'm fond of, but I have that in what fifty places already, but can I be sure those are TEXTUALLY AUTHORITATIVE?!; and then there's the Longman edition, unit two of three, at c. US $125 at amazon.com, with the third allegedly coming out in a month or so thus potentially solving the Christmas gift problem since I'm "impossible to buy for mwnyah mwnyah", but when do these things ever come out when they're slated to, but then these volumes are like a thousand pages each, but then most of that is foot-annotation that washes the text up to the top in desperate little five-line squashings, but then Longman books are so aesthetically pleasing, but really I have absolutely every poem in this volume, though I suppose not at this level of textual authority, which is however less than supreme Reiman and Freistat hint in their shorter and more methodologically complex and perhaps rigorous volume, but then the shipping costs from amazon are surely much lower than from Johns Hopkins which let's face it is a stupid name for a university even if two John Hopkinses really founded it together which strikes me as implausible even for Maryland, but then FreistMant even hint the Longman is merely an edition for Oh God college students, but then I don't have Laon and Cythna proper in my possession just various Revolt of Islams (the revised version) and maybe the incest specifics I'm missing are of high transformative poetic value, but then the Hopkins that I'm in on the ground floor for because of US $9.98 will reach that soon too, but by soon I mean what 2014 don't be silly, but Longman v. 1 is so far out of print as to be unpurchasable...
Plus I seldom read foot or endnotes and am quite attached to the Signet selection and my other paperbacks and am not the kind of person who thinks subtle textual changes do much to what's important in a great poem. Also I hardly ever read these days.
