Special Collectors’ Editions

Some old-fashioned googling & a shot-in-the-dark email led to a list of the highly illusive Classics Of Romance! (see last entry, below)…

Collectors’ editions often appear once books or their authors achieve “classic” or “beloved” status. These editions can include special sizes, decorative and fine or leather bindings, archival paper, ribbon markers, illustrations, matched sets, & slipcases, among other features, all of varying quality. In romance, there are fewer collectors’ editions than one might think, given the popularity of the genre & the superstar status of certain authors within it. A few of Janet Dailey’s books came out in signed skipcase editions in the 90s. More recently, Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series has appeared & continues to appear in multiple collectors’ editions such as Illumicrate & Once Upon A Book Club, & Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander is available in leather from Easton Press, (note that both these series have TV adaptations).

For this post I’m focusing on the only four pre-1999 collectors’ edition series that I’m currently aware of. Some of them are relatively easy to find & collected today, but others are downright illusive!

Rhapsody Romance Classics

These are a series of single-title hardcover editions published by Rhapsody in the early 2000s, these are similar in appearance to book club editions. The dust jackets feature an inset illustration from the original paperback editions. They can be somewhat challenging to find on the secondary market, & I haven’t yet found a definitive list of titles in the series, but the ones I’ve identified so far, from online listings, are as follows:

• Come Love A Stranger, by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss
• Flowers From The Storm, by Laura Kinsale
• Sweet Savage Love, by Rosemary Rogers
• The Windflower, by Laura London

Doubleday Romance Library

Omnibus book club editions containing three category-length titles (originally published by Fawcett) per volume, these were published in the late 70s and possibly the early 80s. They are of standard book club edition quality, though the gilt decoration on the spine and front and back boards can create an attractive shelfscape when multiple volumes are shelved together. They also have illustrated dust jackets. I haven’t yet found a complete list of volumes.  

Romance Treasury

Omnibus hardcover editions containing three titles per volume originally published by Mills & Boon, these were published in the 1970s by The Romance Treasury Association, apparently a division of Harlequin. At 7″ x 4.5″ these are smaller than typical book club editions and of comparable quality but made to be collected and displayed, with gilt decoration on spine and front board (or in their illustrated dust jackets), and a ribbon bookmarker. I haven’t yet found a complete list of volumes, but the volumes had multiple printings and they are plentiful for sale online.

Classics Of Romance

A 13-book series, these single-title editions were published and sold for $14.95 plus $2.75 shipping between 1996 and 1998 by MBI Inc., the parent company of Danbury Mint and Easton Press. Unlike Easton Press editions, these are not bound in leather, but they do have quality details including a leather-like binding, archival paper, gilt decoration on spine and cover, a glossy, full-color frontispiece taken from the cover of an earlier paperback edition, and ribbon marker. 

I first learned of these highly illusive editions from a blog post on Smart Bitches Trashy Books, where you can also see additional photos.

Here are the titles in the order in which Joe from Easton Press customer service listed them for me, (more on how I connected with him below), though I don’t know if this is the order in which they were published or if this order has any other significance:

• The Flame And The Flower, by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss (additional pictures on Smart Bitches)
• The Rebel Bride, by Catherine Coulter
• Devil’s Cub, by Georgette Heyer
• Bride Of Pendorric, by Victoria Holt
• Gentle Pirate, by Jane Castle
• Wild Orchids, by Jude Deveraux
• Carnal Innocence, by Nora Roberts
• Skye O’Malley, by Bertrice Small (pictured on Smart Bitches)
• Hummingbird, by LaVyrle Spencer
• Seize The Fire, by Laura Kinsale (pictured on Smart Bitches)
• Sweet Savage Love, by Rosemary Rogers
• A Duel Of Hearts, by Barbara Cartland
• Tell Me No Lies, by Elizabeth Lowell

The copy of Skye O’Malley pictured on Smart Bitches is signed by Bertrice Small, but I’ve seen another copy online that is not signed (it has since sold on eBay). So, it doesn’t look like an author signature is included in all copies of the title.

It may have been luck that I stumbled on the Smart Bitches posts, or I might have been searching for a title list for Rhapsody Romance Classics — I can’t remember now. But I was glad to find them so I could include them on this site. Of course, I was as intrigued as everyone over at Smart Bitches as to whether there were more titles, who published them, etc. 

Here’s how I found the additional information:

From the copyright page, I identified MBI Inc. as the publisher. A quick internet search took me to the company’s phone number and email. The phone number took me to Easton Press customer service, which at least established the connection between the romances and Easton, but the nice agent on the phone had no record of the romances and didn’t know anything about them. Figuring any further information was lost to the 90s in some deep company records, I sent an email to the generic address anyway and was pleasantly surprised about five days later when I received an email from Easton Press Customer Service rep Joe, who shared all the information above. I also sent him a follow-up email asking if perhaps the company had some old-stock copies squirrelled away, but sadly, he replied they did not. It will be fun to keep my eyes open for any of these editions in the future, and, of course, it’d be great to hear from anyone who has any of them!