These are beautiful books but I buy books to read and with no (protected) jackets I fear they will look shabby quickly even with careful use.

Amon Rudh wrote:

These are beautiful books but I buy books to read and with no (protected) jackets I fear they will look shabby quickly even with careful use.

You can always buy removable book protective sleeves. As an example - these can be slipped on to a book while you are reading it, and then removed when you put it back in the slipcase (I just grabbed a random size for this product link, as I don't have these books to measure exactly yet).

https://www.shopbrodart.com/Library-Su ... le-Slip-Covers-Reseller3/

Thank you for that. I agree this is a decent temporary solution but personally (and I appreciate HC cannot create books to personal spec. 🤣) I read books like this a little and often. I am equally delighted with the books and disapointed with the lack of jackets. I would sooner have jackets than a pointless box.
Not much I can do about it I suppose. At £15 each with discount, I cannot really have any legitimate complaints.
All that said, I may buy some of the linked covers just for these, they are ugly though compared with my usual protectors. Thanks again.

Amon Rudh wrote:

I am equally delighted with the books and disappointed with the lack of jackets. I would sooner have jackets than a pointless box.

I have the opposite view, I find dust-jackets on books in boxed set to be not necessary as the box protects them, and these volumes are IMHO excellent to read and did not need jackets. I am glad that HarperCollins in this case have dispensed with the jackets. I would wait until you have the set to decide if you think protectors are needed.

I have the set already. This is what prompted my post. You may have guessed I am not a fan of the boxes 🙈. You generally have to take from the shelf (in this case) three books to access one. At least this one has spare space inside although after reading the three volumes it will be interesting to see if they fit. For now they are on the shelf sans box.


The world would be a boring placed if people's views were homogenous! 🙂

Every other trade hardback box set ever produced at least recently has jackets (ignoring slipcase/deluxe issues) and for the life of me I cannot understand why not on this one. Presumably it is a cost issue?

Amon Rudh wrote:

Every other trade hardback box set ever produced at least recently has jackets (ignoring slipcase/deluxe issues) and for the life of me I cannot understand why not on this one. Presumably it is a cost issue?

Certainly not a cost choice. A design choice by the publisher.

Fair enough. From my (perhaps rather narrowed) perspective, a bad one. Maybe I am in the minority. I'll go back in my box.....no strike that 🙈

Id have preferred the dustjackets too!

But a polypropylene roll will do...

Maybe I could fashion something similar from the paper backed mylar rolls I use for the dreaded wrappers. There might be just enough if I cut the paper off.

Yes, mylar or polypropylene is better. Pvc in the cheap wrappers can harm books in the long term.
(you can easily spot pvc by applying acetone [nail polish remover], it will become flimsy -polypropylene won't)

PS Sorry for the quality of the pics, my babies won't stop. In reality the result is not as shiny as we see in the pictures.