You'll be able to find a very wide selection of vintage 40's & 50's hard-backs on the UK Ebay, and if you can sacrifice the dust-wrappers, and forgo true first editions of the earliest books, most can be had for a few pounds each. The 60's Knight and Armada paperbacks are quite plentiful too, and very inexpensive.Courtenay wrote:Anita Bensoussane wrote:I do love Betty Maxey's drawing of Timmy on his own though, lying down. He looks adorable!
Although I also find some of Eileen Soper's illustrations a bit sketchy, I agree that she definitely does get "the Five" much more right, much more of the time, than anyone else. I would love to collect a full set of the FF with Soper illustrations, old enough editions for the text to be as little tampered with as possible (dust jackets would be a bonus, though not essential), but that would probably take a lot more time and (especially) money than I can afford to spare right now!
Over a not-too-long a period, you could have a full collection of either hardback or paperback, all with Soper illustrations, and the original unmolested text!
That's how I managed a full collection of hardbacks...