Why is this allowed?
>>7983083
hipsters
It's not
>>7983083
it collects dust better
>>7983083
i always thought it was homemade paper.
>>7983083
I have no idea why, but one seems to see this with American made books especially, and it seems to be considered a marker of better quality, usually hardback editions; though I find it quite annoying, DESU.
Examples on my shelves are:
- Marvin Meyer's bilingual edition of The Gospel of Thomas (Harper San Francisco 1992) ISBN 006065581X
- Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, first US edition (Bloomsbury 2004) ISBN 1582344167
- Robert Fagles' Odyssey (Viking Penguin 1996) ISBN 0670821624
The paper itself is pretty good - certainly library quality - in all of these: the Fagles is acid-free; the Gospel of Thomas is too, but recycled and slightly thinner.
>>7983098
I was retarded enough to buy the penguin deluxe edition of GR and it has the deckled edges as well. I also noticed that the paper felt like it was of very good quality.
I still haven't read the book though.
Yeah I don't know. It's outright annoying and not to mention ugly. The new Crying of Lot 49 and Infinite Jest has it.
>>7983097
It's supposed to look like homemade paper but of course it's mass produced in a factory like everything else
>>7983083
My translation of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (Penguin Deluxe Classics) is deckled. When it arrived I thought it had been damaged in transit or something.
>>7983111
My Abacus 20th anniversary edition of Infinite Jest doesn't have it.
>>7983083
I like it, it feels rougher. I enjoy a rougher page than a smooth page. Only pussies like smooth pages, if my paper don't have a huge chance of slicing my fingers open upon each turn, well those pages are for girls.
>>7983134
wow thats amazing.
>>7983135
You've got it backwords. You can't give yourself a papercut on a jagged, torn up piece of paper.
Smooth on the other hand will slice the fucking hell out of you.
>>7983146
What?! I've been had. Barnes and Nobles told me only real men read rough pages. Was it a scam, Anon?
>>7983083
The way it looks on a shelf makes me cum, and my favorite books come with it.
I bought the Fagles copy of the Odyssey just because I saw it was deckled desu
>>7983155
The merchant has indeed hoodwinked you, my friend
It's kind of a pain to flip through deckle edged books, but I really don't care either way.
I stole a very old edition Emerson's "English Traits" with a plain orange paper cover and pages that you have to slice open with a letter opener, each page being joined to another by their two long ends, forming a couple. It must be a cheap printing technique they used to do. They'd print several pages up and down a huge sheet of paper, then cut it at selected places and then fold the thing and glue it. It smells of really old book. I stole it because where it was (a school) its pages hadn't been opened since it was first printed in 1965.
DECKLED EDGES A SHIT! SHIIIT!!!!!
I
FUCKING
HATE
DECKLED
EDGES!!!!!!!
They're not cool, they don't look good, they suck to turn, they serve no useful purpose. It's being different for the sake of being different-and nothing else.
It's good, actually.
>>7984517
It serves an aesthetic function
>>7984589
Fuck you.
>>7983182
> It must be a cheap printing technique they used to do.
Not just a cheap printing technique. Almost all printed books used to be like this. (In fact this multiple-fold method is still how books are printed, it's just that a machine at the press now cuts the pages for you.) There is a fun line in the Great Gatsby about Gatsby's gigantic library where none of the books have their pages cut.
>>7983083
I own a lot of old french and spanish books where the pages were pressed as folios folded into quarters then bound. The end result is an origami nightmare. Apparently, people used to use a dull knife to part the leafs, resulting in the uneven pages you see on the deckled edges.
For my part, I read every page of Flaubert and Stendhal with an X-Acto knife piosed in my sweaty, faltering grip, always assured of its immaculate precision.
Graphic designer here, going to share some light over this...
The lines are to make the glue stick better to the back as they create friction, or small wells where the glue can seep into better than it would on a completely flat surface. So the printers saw into the paper. It is possible, to save money, one simply wouldn't bother with cutting off the excess paper.
Sawing into the paper and gluing is cheaper than hand binding them. However, a combination of both make for sturdier books.
>But why is it on both sides then?
Honestly, don't know. It may be an error of the printers. They saw the wrong side first. And do not bother with chopping off the excess because it won't fit with the cover then.
As most books have intricate folds to take them down to the size they need to be, it is also possible that one saw one side and then cut it, but the bottom part of that side will be the "back" part of the the other book. One chop that in half when it's time for binding and simply don't bother with taking off the excess. Because it would be cheaper that way.
>>7983098
Man I fucking regret getting the Penguin Deluxe editions of the Iliad and the Odyssey, they both have this bullshit. I mean it looks cool but that's it - it's a pain to actually read the books that do this stupid shit.
>>7985037
noice
>>7983106
Oh cmon it's not a bad edition. I don't understand how this myth continues to be promulgated here.
>>7985114
I went into a Barnes and noble about8months ago and checked the editions in store. All ( both) had the deleted partial sentence ( and various other missing letters and typos from what I've heard)
>>7983083
This shit right here on my fucking Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
>>7985129
From what you've heard or what you've seen? Pardon my incredulity but I am suspect that a book as well known as GR would continue to be produced with known faults by a publishing house as large as penguin
>>7984589
I serve an atheistic function.
Get on my level.
hibrherohrtho
>>7983182
As >>7984651 said, that's still how good books are made. When I bought a copy of Francis Vian's Bude Apollonios, the second and third volumes were hardback, but the first only available in the typically robust Bude paperback, and uncut, as Bude paperbacks tended to be. I got the university printer to trim it for me.
I also have an 1896 copy of the first volume of EC Wickham's Oxford edition of Horace. Appendix IV is a collation of a manuscript at Queen's College, Oxford, and that part was entirely uncut (along the top of pages) when I was given the volume - more than 100 years after it was printed. The rest of the book shows signs of cutting by a previous owner.
>>7985445
But it does happen. Errors get into the printed text (I've seen it with Oxford World's Classics, and Princeton UP), and sometimes do not get corrected unless or until there's a new or reset edition.
>>7985445
>>7985489
Another example is Collins: I have a 1962 (first; not valuable) edition of Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. On several pages in the earlier part at least, the principal character is given as "Miss Marples". And this was in a book from one of the publisher's most popular authors, forty years into her published career.
>never judge a book by its cover
>instead give 50% - 75% of a book's value to the condition of the dust jacket
>>7983124
>It's supposed to look like homemade paper but of course it's mass produced in a factory like everything else
This. It's supposed to make a book look like it ws made with hand-made paper.
>>7985628
epic
>>7985640
your thumbnail looks strangely thin
yep fagles odyssey/iliad/aeneid are all deckled
but the quality on everything else is so good i dont really mind
>>7984589
>books
>serving an aesthetic function
Top motherfucking pleb
>>7986055
What do you hope to accomplish by posting like this? The only think you're communicating to everyone here is that you are a flustered retard.
>>7986210
>The only think you're communicating
>>7986232
Cute. Now show me your reply in the case of me not having made that little typo.
>>7983083
I'm laughing at all the plevs in this thread. If you faggots didn't live in suburbia where the only book store is Barnes and mobles you would know that these books are supposed to be taken to the local independent bookstore. If you ask the owner about these books they'll immediately know what you're talking about. For a nominal fee (usually 3 dollars in my experience) the owner will go and SHARPEN your pages. A sharpened page has one of the smoothest textures you've ever felt and is eminently superior to industrial page cutting. I usually go to get my pages sharpened once month to keep them in pristine condition . if you're reselling it adds value to the book immebsely not to mention enhances your own reading experi ence immebsely.
>>7986348
>I usually go to get my pages sharpened once month
what the fuck am I reading
Books used to have their pages cut, that's how they looked after they were cut. "Neat" page edges are a newer invention.
This is just a throwback design to how book pages used to look.
>>7983083
I hate this on books.
>>7986348
kek
