To be or not to be a completist

I just realized that although in my head I am working to collect every work by my favorite authors, that in each case I've made an exception. For instance, I refuse to get Penhallow, the book that Georgette Heyer wrote badly so she'd be let out of her contract. Peter West by D. E. Stevenson is another example, it is REALLY expensive and I've been told it is not very good. How do other folks handle the dilemma of really liking an author to the point of devoting a shelf to that author, but recognizing that perhaps not all works are worth collecting? I find that I have a struggle between my perfectionist, completeist self and my more pragmatic self every time I glimpse a title by an author I really like that I don't own.

I've only been a completist for a few authors, so far.

The only ones for this group have been Louisa May Alcott and Grace S. Richmond. I'm nearly there on both. However, I have decided to rid myself of A Long Fatal Love Chase, because it really is SO BAD! I have a couple other short story collections she published pseudonymously, and they are uneven in quality. The stories that Jo March wrote early on completely describe the type of fiction that Louisa May began with - melodramatic tripe.

Grace falls a bit short of the mark in her short stories supporting entry into WW1, just because they are so much propaganda.

A story about one of Louisa May's harder to find titles. I was "camping" in Philadelphia for a few months while my brother was at Moss Rehab Hospital. The local library system was celebrating Alcott's 160th birthday or somesuch, and they had a display of her works. After admiring the display, I went downstairs to the used book sale room, stocked with community contributions, and found my own copy of Flower Fables. Yay!! The library itself did not have a copy, not even in their special display.

I really struggle with letting go of books by my favourite authors. D. E. Stevenson, Dorothy L. Sayers, Elizabeth Cadell, L. M. Montgomery, Nevil Shute, Lucilla Andrews, Georgette Heyer. I like most of the books they wrote, but every one of them wrote some books I just can't stand. For instance, I thought Rochester's Wife was awful, but I haven't been able to bring myself to get rid of it, in case the author mentions the characters in another one of her books. And I know that if I got rid of a book by almost any of my favourite authors, it would be difficult or impossible to replace if I ever changed my mind. Sometimes I see a book at a sale or online, and the condition and price are good, but I know that I don't like it (Five Red Herrings, for instance). Then I have to firmly convince myself NOT to buy it.

There are some authors that I've come to terms with. I got rid of almost all of my Hercule Poirot books, and a lot of books by Alistair Maclean and Dick Francis. But they aren't my top tier authors, and the books wouldn't be that hard to replace. I am going to have to become more ruthless, because every shelf of my bookcases has secondary works piled in behind my favourites, and I just don't have room for more.

#2: I really enjoyed A Long Fatal Love Chase, but then I like gothic melodrama such as Alcott's "thrillers" much more than her works like Little Women.

At times I've wanted to have all of Carolyn Keene's and Alice B. Emerson's books. H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and L. Frank Baum are the only authors, off the top of my head, whose complete works I would be most interested in acquiring.

I generally tend to collect series. I have all Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody and all of the Anne of Green Gables and all of Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy books and am trying to get all of Lenora Mattingly Weber's Beany books. I tend to ignore books by the same authors if I don't like them.

4> Sylvia - you and I do seem to have a lot in common in our reading material. There was a time when I had read every Alistair MacLean and Dick Francis there was. I didn't own too many of them. My Dad owned some and the rest we got from the library. I'm a little sad to think about those days of reading right now - it's not official from the doctors yet or anything, but it appears to me that my Dad's got two different cancers competing to cut short his reading life. The emphasis right now is to make sure any proposed treatments don't interfere with family vacations we have planned for this summer. 25 years ago this summer, we didn't know enough to push back on scheduling of cancer treatment for my Mom so as not to interfere with family time. We learned.

>7 MDGentleReader:

I'm very sorry to hear that, MDGentlereader. I've been through it with my own parents, so I know what you're talking about. I hope things go well for your Dad, and for your family. My mother was an avid reader, and one of her biggest concerns after she was diagnosed was how much more she would be able to read.

I am a completist in terms of reading - so I would read anything an author had written but will not go out of my way to find decent copies of the ones I do not really like... Except when they are published as a series that is...

Dear MDGentlereader: So Heyer tried to get ot of her contract with Penhallow? Wow, where did you learn that?

As a teenager, I used to have a complete set of her romances in German (I think the detective stories weren't available at the time) and replaced them with English originals once I started travelling to London (and its bookstores). If an author's style and genre really appeal to me, I try to lay my hands on everything they published. I used to have a complete Alistair MacLean, Anthony Price, Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky. But I think series with a stable set of main characters at some point suffer from the law of diminishing returns, around book 15 or 16 interest wanes (or worse, they become repetitive..)

I've read it multiple places, but I found it just now in her Wikipedia entry, 2nd paragraph under Financial problems section.

I've never read Anthony Price, but I used to read Alistair MacLean, Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky. These days I seem to gravitate to kinder, gentler stories.

Thanks for the info. I have been thinking of reading the biography Joan Aiken Hodge wrote, but there's always so little time for so many books...
And I, too, read far fewer thrillers and crime fiction than I used to. I'm pretty much a 19th century girl these days.

I have The Private World of Georgette Heyer, but I've only dipped into it here and there. It looks very good--I think I'll put it on my bedside table to start reading.

I think The Private World of Georgette Heyer is one of the first places I read about the writing of Penhallow to get out of her contract.

Just found this thread...

While I like complete series, I have given up on two things:

1. Collecting all in a series in the same editions...different cover styles irritate me ;)
2. Collecting every work by a favorite author, even the books that I will not read again

On the first, I make an effort to get the same series covers as I change over my library from hardcover to paperback, but it isn't always possible. My Poldark books are a motley bunch of covers and bindings, but at least I have them! Before the discovery of used book stores online, I despaired of ever reading all the books in that series.

Regarding the second, I offer my Louis L'Amour collection as an example. I have enjoyed all the L'Amour books I've read, with only a few exceptions, so I don't own the exceptions. See here: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/fuzzi&deepsearch=L%27amour

BTW, both of these collections aren't particularly old, but I love them, and many are tattered... ;)

I have all of the Rex Stout Nero Wolfe mysteries, and several of his other works, but since they have nowhere near the appeal of the the Wolfe books, I don't care to keep them or collect them. I am working on collecting all of the Nero Wolfe stories in hardcover versions though. They hold up to rereads much better than paperbacks.

Of Dorothy L. Sayers, I have all of the Wimsey stories (again, working to get them all in hardcover), and have read several of her other works, although I must say they are not anything I would reread. Some I haven't read because they cost too much, or are simply unavailable. I'm very interested in her theological works and especially her plays, but that has been so far a pleasure deferred.

Ellis Peters Cadfael, yes. Edith Pargeter's works I want to read, but do not need to own. Well, I haven't actually read the Heaven Tree Trilogy, although it is on my list to read this year, so time will tell.

I suppose, as I look around my shelves, I see that although I will own all the books in a particular favorite series by an author, I have no compulsion to own everything any author has written.

I don't read Heyer's detective books, but I have a real find. The great Roxhythe. Quite honestly, I will probably never read it again, I think she was right to refuse to let it be reprinted. But it's rather cool to have a copy.