Weekly Geeks: An Obsession

Weekly Geeksters, tell us, do you have a collection, (or are you starting a collection,) of one particular book title? If so, what's your story? Why that book, and how many do you have, and what editions are they? Share pictures and give us all the details.

Or perhaps you dream about starting such a collection. What title would it be and what would it take for you to get motivated to start collecting?Or maybe it's the works of a particular author you collect (or want to collect) instead a certain book title?

I have to admit, I have never thought about this before. I certainly have and do own multiple copies of the same title, but it has always been a matter of practicality not collecting. Here are some books I have more than one of and why:

1. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous: I first read this book after finding it in a box of old books in the attic. Apparently it was my mother's copy. The binding was breaking apart, and a few years later, the book was in three sections. Still I read the falling-apart-at-the-seams book and it wasn't until years later that I bought the second copy. I still have the first, in three parts, because I like the history of it.

2. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series and Lord of the Rings series: I have multiples of these for the same reason: I got the entire series/collection in one hardcover book - I read it and loved it - I bought the individual paperbacks for easier re-reading. I also have the original HHG book I read, the first in the series, which was also in that old box of books where I found Go Ask Alice, and it too was falling apart.

3. Complete Works of William Shakespeare: I have the complete works in four different ways. First, I have two hardcover Complete Works. I also have the mass market paperbacks of the majority of his plays. Finally, my treasure: I attended St. Patrick's Academy for gradeschool, and when they decided to clean out the library in my eighth grade year, my little geek heart got all excited. The principal let me look through the library and pick out books I wanted. That is how I came into possession, in eighth grade, of the complete works of William Shakespeare, each with its own book, with a lovely if faded blue material cover, published in the early 1900s.

I supppose if I were to actually collect the different publishings of one title, it probably would be Adams's HHG. It's the book I've read the most often in my life, and it probably has some fun covers. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind owning the many different copies of Le Fanu's In a Glass Darkly - it would be pretty creepy to have an entire shelf dedicated to that book.

What about you guys? Obsessed with any one title?