Franklin Library 'Hierarchy' ?

In shopping for Franklin Library books, I'm finding that there is a confusing array of 'series', with the same book sometimes available in multiple versions. It's my impression that the 'build quality' for some of the series (100 Greatest Books, Pulitzer Prize, etc) is known to be higher than others. Is there an accepted 'hierarchy' of quality? I know that some of the later series were made using "1/4 leather" binding, and those are easy to recognize, but the others are a mystery to me... I'm sure this topic has been discussed before, but I'm new to the group - I apologize for repetition.

This forum is almost dormant but it still contains some good information, and you might find an answer to your question here. My personal experience is that the anniversary set of the Great Books of the Western World contains some high quality leather, and so does the set produced by Franklin in conjunction with Oxford University Press (but be sure they are the leather editions - some weren’t).

Franklin editions have generally held up well over the decades and many of them are really inexpensive now.

>1 Starpacer: my personal preference is, for the series that I have found to have reliable quality, in order descending from the best:

1. Oxford Library of the Worlds Greatest Books (special edition)
2. 100 Greatest Books of all Time
3. Great Books of the Western World
4. 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature

I’ve been happy with books from all these series, and have been pleasantly surprised by the book design and quality of image reproduction in some of them.

>3 abysswalker: Thanks very much for the list. That's exactly what I was looking for! I see that 'Pulitzer Prize Winners' isn't on your list - my observation from the limited number of books I have is that those seem to be slightly inferior to the others. Thanks again.

>4 Starpacer:

The Pulitzer Prize Winners are of the standard, full leather FL construction.

The build quality of the “Signed 60” series is also top notch

I happened to buy 10 of the Oxford series at a charity book fair while knowing very little about Franklins but certain that the exquisite bindings of the Oxfords indicated a bargain for the asking price of $5 per book. Since then I have added a dozen or so of the 100 (actually 125) Great Books of All Time series and 4 volumes from the Great Books of the Western World. As a disaffected refugee from the Folio Society I am in awe of the quality of the Franklins that I am lucky enough to own. Their Achilles heel is their illustrations, I feel.

As an aside, it is a shame that this group is moribund.

>7 Felixholt: One more sad side effect of the convenience (ahem, laziness) that places like Facebook Group offer.

>7 Felixholt: “As an aside, it is a shame that this group is moribund.”

The lack of interest probably has to do with the fact that Franklin went out of business 30 years ago, so is no longer promoting its books or printing new ones. Many of us Franklin collectors have been collecting them for longer than those 30 years, and we have seen first-hand how well they have maintained their quality and how inexpensively most of them can now be obtained.

The only other defunct publisher I know of that still has a sizable following is the Limited Editions Club, but it’s heir, Easton Press, reprints many LEC volumes. Also, LEC books were printed letterpress which still maintains a certain mystique among a relatively small but dedicated group of collectors.

>9 jroger1: "The only other defunct publisher I know of that still has a sizable following is the Limited Editions Club, but it’s heir, Easton Press, reprints many LEC volumes. Also, LEC books were printed letterpress which still maintains a certain mystique among a relatively small but dedicated group of collectors."

And they were printed on superior paper, had great illustrations that were well printed, were limited in number, and usually signed.

>10 kdweber: Agreed, as the 200 occupying my shelves attest. I recently read the late Larry McMurtry's account of his career buying and selling books - entitled somewhat unimaginatively "Books" - at p 233 he describes LECs as "a fancied up line of reprints of which about ten have any intrinsic worth" and as "expensively vulgar". Harsh.

>11 Felixholt:
On page 47 he also described the Heritage Club “which issued nicely made but inexpensive reprints of various classics — what the Folio Society, in England, did and did better.” I don’t think he mentioned either the Franklin Library or Easton Press.

>12 jroger1: Yes, I thought it odd that he didn't seem to connect the Limited Editions Club with the Heritage Press - but he must have been aware of it. I thought his book was rather slight, to be honest. Mostly of interest for all the bookstores that have disappeared over the last decade or two.

>3 abysswalker: I mostly agree with the above assessment, plus I will add the Stories of Greatest Authors series, which is comparable to the 100 Greatest series in terms of production quality. After owning literally several hundred FL full leather books, I came to the following conclusions:

The Oxford Library editions are in three flavors - double embossed full leather with moire end papers (the highest trim), full leather with marbled end papers (I value marbled end papers less than moire), and quarter leather editions. Some volumes of the first kind easily fetches $100-$200 on the secondary market.

The other point I have to make is the decline in quality of FL books over a particular series. To stay in the black, FL had to cut production costs of every series over time (remember that a 100 volume series will last for more than 8 years). So the earliest volumes will have the most luxurious production compared to the the ones from the tail end. The GBWW series had the most obvious decline in terms of production.

As far as duplicates from different series goes, the relative desirability will depend on your taste. After going through a collecting spree, I decided to keep the 100 Greatest full series, and culled parts of the other series. I augment this with volumes from other FL series that I am actually interested in reading (as opposed to collecting), and that are not duplicates. I did keep some duplicates around because they were so beautiful that I did not have the heart to let them go (Francis Bacon from GBWW, Andersen Tales from the Stories of Greatest Authors etc).

Hope this helps. Happy to share my love of beautiful FL books!