While there's always considerable serendipity involved in book purchases, there are also those books which you know you should buy...and yet, somehow, never do. A pre-1928 edition of The Book of Common Prayer, for example. Granted, it's easy enough to check a reference in a library copy or a hypertext edition. But the book's physical absence from my shelves has nagged at my conscience for some time. Recently, guilt finally overcame inertia, and I diverted my attention from obscure Victorian religious novelists long enough to invest in an edition distributed by the SPCK.
What books are missing from your library?
I should have a good copy of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding; but somehow I've never gotten one (all I have is an abridged Hackett version).
Posted by: Brandon | February 16, 2006 at 11:38 PM
A Geneva Bible and a King James Bible. I use Reference Room copies now, but I really want my own.
Posted by: Rebecca | February 17, 2006 at 09:52 AM
-The Norton Shakespeare: I only have loose copies of plays and sonnets, have to use the copy at the univeristy library
-Plato Complete Works: it always nags my conscience, as you have put it, not to have more of Plato
Love your blog by the way.
Posted by: Matt | February 17, 2006 at 05:27 PM
"Sodom, or, The Quintessence of Debauchery" Antwerp, 1684. Atrrib. to Rochester. First ed. Oh to find one bound quietly amongst a collection of sermons.
Posted by: Clanger | February 22, 2006 at 07:48 AM