Prolific Authors: Who Are the Ones Worth Reading “Everything”?

Maybe there's a problem with "copious." A better word would be "prolific." That does a better job of suggesting multiple distinct works. Could a moderator change "Copious" to "Prolific" in the thread title? I apologize for any confusion I caused by my original choice of a misleading word. My bad.
 
Extollager said:
Maybe there's a problem with "copious." A better word would be "prolific." That does a better job of suggesting multiple distinct works. Could a moderator change "Copious" to "Prolific" in the thread title? I apologize for any confusion I caused by my original choice of a misleading word. My bad.
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I see no problem with copious at all, and it seems obvious Rabelais doesn't fit here, the issue only arose as you mooted Bronte originally, who clearly doesn't fit either I think. None of the classical authors (Greeks and Romans) fit to my way of thinking either. Certainly not Homer, who perhaps wrote only one long poem (and another he may or may not have written).

In response to the query, I'm on a slow go through all of Dickens at present. It will take a few years, but if I avoid premature death I'll get there eventually. Trollope is a good call, but not one I shall undertake.

Wodehouse might qualify? Certainly copious/prolific. And you can track them all down I think. But is he 'canonical'? He should be, but that's another thing.

I might also suggest W. Somerset Maugham. He wrote a lot, its a good quality, and you could get through it all if you really tried. He might be someone I do read all of - I've perhaps read a third of his stuff to date.

Maugham's books:

maugham books.jpg
 
That's an impressive row of books! I didn't realize that Maugham had written so much nor that there was a uniform edition. Would The Razor’s Edge be a good first novel by him? That’s the one I have.

Zola would be another prolific author, but I don't think he gets talked about here. I haven't read him.

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Personally I'd not include Jules Verne as an author for "standard, canonical" prolific authors. But he sure was prolific. I have to post this picture -- look at those gorgeous bindings!
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The "Iroquois Edition" of the works of Fenimore Cooper:

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Twain's notorious send-up of Cooper notwithstanding, Cooper does (or did) still make it as a "canonical," standard author. I think The Prairie might be better esteemed than the better-known Last of the Mohicans. But what a set.
 
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The works of George Eliot (=Mary Ann Evans). I think I read her telepathy novella “The Lifted Veil” in a volume like one of these.
 
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That packaging did much, in its time, to promote the idea of "The Brontes," sort of as if there was a group mind, and, if that helped to get the books read and enjoyed and understood, well, so far as that goes it was a good thing. But there's quite a difference between Anne's Agnes Grey and Emily's Wuthering Heights. But none of “The Brontes” was prolific.

That does raise the question as to whether a uniform edition of a truly prolific author doesn’t promote the sense that the books are all cut from the same cloth....when that’s often not really the case.

Not that this thread is supposed to be devoted exclusively to authors who had uniform sets. It’s just one of the topics someone might want to comment on.

Does anybody here have a complete or broken set of The Works of some standard author in uniform bindings? If so, was it an inheritance? Did that format entice you or did it put you off? Or do you know someone who has a set(s)?

Those lucky people who get to visit used book stores —do you see sets of the works of such authors? Do they seem to sell?
 
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Those Jules Vernes are terrific I'd pay good money for them.

Fennimore Cooper definitely a contender, but not one I'll ever endeavour to read through in entirety. Scott's Waverley's now, that's a different matter.
 
Bick said:
Fennimore Cooper definitely a contender, but not one I'll ever endeavour to read through in entirety. Scott's Waverley's now, that's a different matter.
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It warms my heart to read that remark about Scott.
 
The completion of a complete works of Samuel Johnson:

www.neh.gov

A Monument to the Mother Tongue

“Johnson, in fact, has much to say to our age, and he says it better than most of our modern thinkers,” scholar Henry Darcy Curwen noted in 1963.
www.neh.gov www.neh.gov

I wonder if this set will be among the very last -- or even will be the last -- such set of a major canonical author, in a time when book costs are so high, the idea of the canon is so despised by many, and, possibly, there are fewer scholars with the qualifications to edit such works being produced. What a set to own that would be!

yalebooks.yale.edu

Search Results - Yale University Press

yalebooks.yale.edu yalebooks.yale.edu
 
G.A. Henty? "Prolific" is even in his wikipedia page and he died in 1902. Several of his historical fictions were required reading for me growing up. Never seen a "collected works" set, though.
 
Hawthorne. Surprised he didn't get a mention yet from you Extollager! Is this the prettiest set of bound volumes you've ever seen?
This is a 12 volume 1884 edition.

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Leo Tolstoy
Edward Bulwer Lytton
Alexander Dumas
William Makepeace Thackery
Sir Walter Scott
Sir Richard Burton
Victor Hugo
Sinclair Lewis
 
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Bick, I don't know -- I might have thought of Hawthorne but decided he didn't qualify, in my opinion, as a prolific author. Four novels (I'm not counting the early Fanshawe), none of which was long by the standard of the day, three story & sketch collections for adults, two books of myths etc. retold for children, one book of travels (Our Old Home), and a campaign biography for Franklin Pierce -- I think that was about it for a lifetime's work. Would he fit into the company we have mostly been discussing? But I admit that it comes to more than one sometimes thinks of offhand -- and that's a handsome set there. How did the publishers get to 12 volumes?

Now, if one admits the books in the Ohio Centenary series, you could get to copious/prolific, because there are several volumes of letters, two volumes of fragments... and the Notebooks. I have upgraded my American Notebooks twice: first I had the 1932 Randall Stewart edition, which was good in itself; then I bought the Ohio edition in paperback; and then a few weeks ago got the Ohio edition in hardcover (I will post a photo). My Stewart edition of the English Notebooks will do, though I wouldn't a bit mind getting the two-volume Ohio edition thereof if someone gave it to me for Christmas. I have the French and Italian Notebooks in the Ohio edition, but while it is certainly good I don't find it as interesting as the earlier two Notebooks. Anyway, the Ohio edition of Hawthorne comes to about 24 volumes, and that might qualify Hawthorne as copious/prolific by a generous edition -- but much of that was not intended for publication....
 
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