Anyone Here Collect Gryphon Editions or Library of America?

Hello EP Collectors,
I received an email today from Gryphon Editions with an offer to order their books and thought they really looked nice, but they don't seem to offer any classic or fiction novels. Does anyone here own or collect any titles from Gryphon Editions? How do they compare to EP?
I'm not sure if they carry any titles that I'm interested in. Does anyone know where to find a list of titles for each of their collections, because I didn't see any on there site.
I'm also trying out LOA books since their prices are so affordable and just received volumes 1 & 2 of Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales yesterday which are really nice. I'll have to get use to them since their size and finish is so much different from my EP books which after sleeping on it last night I'm not 100% on receiving a monthly subscription. Any thoughts or feelings about LOA books and does anyone here collect these too?

I have almost all of the LOA books, but I bought them individually because I prefer the jackets to the slipcases. I love their selection of titles, not to mention their prices. The typefaces are always easy to read and I've never received a defective one. You will be giving up leather bindings and illustrations, however. I depend on LOA for most of my American literature and buy EP, FL, and FS for the rest.

I also appreciate the fact that LOA's management is not afraid to interact with members of LT's LOA forum.

>1 Tolkienfan: Gryphon is great. I got my brother many from their legal series. I only own one Essays of Montaigne.

Regarding LOA I want The Pioneers but it appears if vol 1 by Cooper has three books. Please clarify.

>3 HugoDumas: Yes volume 1 has The Pioneers, The Last of The Mohicans, and The Prairie. Volume 2 consists of The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer.

>3 HugoDumas:
LOA books average 1,000 pages each and so usually contain more than one of the author's works. Cooper, vol. 1, contains Prairie, Pioneers, and Mohicans. Vol. 2 contains Pathfinder and Deerslayer. A separate volume contains his sea novels.

Library of America is fantastic except for their greasy dust jackets. Worse than a smart phone screen.

>1 Tolkienfan:
I currently subscribe to the Gryphon Editions Ancient Classics series. They don't have much documentation on their website, but can send you a list of books in series by email. Here is what I received for mine:
001 Seneca’s Morals
Roger L’Estrange

002 Trail and Death of Socrates
Plato

003 The Wars of the Jews
Josephus

004 On the Commonwealth
Cicero

005 Cicero Murder Trials
Cicero

006 Stories from Livy
Livy

007 The Life and Works of Solon
Kathleen Freeman

008 Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens
Aristotle

009/010 Institutes of Oratory VOLS I & II
Quintilian

011 Meditations
Marcus Aurelius

012/013 THE HISTORIES OF POLYBIUS
Polybius

014 THE LAWS OF PLATO

Forthcoming Titles

Moralia
Plutarch

Nicomachean Ethis
Aristotle

Germania
Tacitus

>7 Arknight: Those all sound like very interesting titles from Gryphon and those selections would probably interest me most out of all the collections. Thanks for sharing this list!

>6 JustinTChan:

I don't like the LOA dust jackets, either: neither the feel of them, nor their look. But obviously others do, as per >2 jroger1:.

I subscribe and so receive the solander boxes / slipcases, a uniform cream with LOA logo embossed, but without anything specific to each title (apart from being fitted to the specific size of each volume). I much prefer these to the dustjackets.

There are occasional exceptions. I purchased the Lynd Ward omnibus volume containing his last three woodcut novels: Prelude to a Million Years. Not only are the two Ward LOA volumes necessarily full of illustrations (he specialized in woodcuts, and his woodcut novels are entirely without words), but both volumes come with a special dustjacket and slipcase, and the dustjacket was an entirely different design than that found in retail stores, and not slick paper. It's the only LOA volume to come in orange cloth, as well, which the dustjacket matches. Very sharp.

ETA There is also a box set for the two Ward LOA volumes, including both volumes and a custom slipcase. This one is orange and matches the design of the dustjackets. I opted to get the books in separate slipcases, rather than the box set.

>9 elenchus: I do like the fact that they come in their own slipcase and prefer that option over a dust jacket any day. I also like how comfortable they are to hold.

I collect Gryphon's Science Classics, which dovetails fairly well with Easton's science classics set. Gryphon is probably also your best source for leather bound books in the areas of law, medicine classics, and some ancient classics.

Generally speaking, the books are built exactly the same as Easton's (same outsourced binding and printing companies) with the most significant difference being that Gryphon usually doesn't opt for the moire end papers like Easton does.

Gryphon must also be a much smaller business because not everything they ship shows up shrink wrapped, or the shrink wrap is present but opened - in other words, they'll ship out things that were returned by others. It hasn't been a problem because everything has looked and felt as-new. After a while, they ran out of volumes from the science classics series and delved into the medical classics and once even tried sending me Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia. Fortunately, they accepted it back without any issue.

I don't collect-collect Gryphon or LOA in the way I do Easton or Folio, but I certainly have a few. LOA always has the most complete stuff and has done some interesting things like a new Alexis de Tocqueville translation, and interesting themed collections. They're all good quality. Like Elenchus I also have the Lynd Ward graphic novels, but I opted for the two-volume box set.

I get Gryphon for, well, the things Gryphon has that other places don't. Mostly I have notable trials and ancient philosophy/classics (they sent me an email recently promoting Lucretius's On the Nature of Things and I have been meaning to order it, for instance). They're lower quality than old Easton and Franklin books but seem more or less the same quality as current Easton books to me.

By the way I simply could not resist their Signed Trial of Nelson Mandela for my brother who is an attorney.

Encyclopedia Britannica admirers might be interested in this new offering from Gryphon:

https://gryphoneditions.com/leather-books-for-sale/the-treasury-of-the-encyclopa...

>12 katielouise: If you can afford it, I recommend the LEC edition of Lucretius.

I collect LOA books. I like that you can collect all of the works by a certain author. Also like their themed novel collections. Obviously very different from EP or FS but for the content and price, definitely worth it. Very simple but elegant design.

I subscribed to LOA at one point, but that did not last too long. At first it seemed like a good idea getting a book a month. (I really miss getting Easton's 100 greatest books.) You can tell them which ones you want, but they keep adding books each year, and if you don't turn in the list of new titles when it comes, you automatically get all of the new titles. They select the order they come in. It was just too much, and the price is about 2/3 of the current Easton 100 Greatest. I think the positives on LOA are some titles can't be found in print any other way. They also do their own typesetting. These are NOT facsimile editions, so there aren't the faults that a scanned copy of an old edition would have. On the downside, the volumes are all the same size and rather small. They really try to keep the cost down on these, so the paper is thin to get more pages in a book. Almost as thin as the paper Bibles are printed on. Covers are on the thin side too, so more flexible than standard hardcovers. Text is clear, but on the small side. Most have no illustrations. For shorter books, you get multiple titles in a binding - such as the Leatherstocking Tales. I still have a few LOA titles, again stuff you can't get any other way, but I stopped my subscription a few years ago.

I've recently looked at Gryphon. If you look at their website they have a link to an article in National Review about their book business. Seems to be a husband/wife team. These are all facsimile copies. The article says they scan in the copy of the title they want to produce. Then it goes off to the printer/bindery in Tennessee. Hmm... who do we think that is? Just by looking at the covers, it's pretty obvious they are using the same bindery as EP. Standard price for a full leather book is about $65 whereas EP's is $75. Not much overlap in titles with EP from what I can tell.

Have a few titles from Gryphon. I agree--very much akin to EP in look and feel. I often prefer their much simpler cover design.

>14 jroger1: interesting, but I chose the first edition hardback for £5

I love the LOA books. I started getting them about 5 years ago. A couple of notes that haven't been mentioned: If you are a subscriber, you don't have to receive books monthly -- you can set up your own schedule, up to getting one every 6 months. It can be adjusted at anytime. Also, as a subscriber, you can buy any of the books that are available at any time for your subscriber's price, with NO shipping and handling. There is a group on LT for LOA books, as well.

I finally placed my first order with Gryphon Editions Ancient Classic Library subscription. I am focusing on nonfiction books on history which I enjoy learning about.

>21 Tolkienfan: do let me know how you find them. Rey interested have been looking at these for a while

I have 2 (I think) Gryphon books. I like EP better but was still impressed with them. They have a lot of subjects that are not available in the EP format

>22 ironjaw: I will post a review here once I receive my first title.