Posted by Owen Roberts on June 05, 2007 at 16:30:11 from 91.125.6.52 user OwenRoberts.
Yesterday I was fortunate to buy in London a copy of Swallowdale illustrated by Clifford Webb.
It was cheap because it had no dust jacket, it was a 7th Impression (was this the last Clifford Webb impression?) and all the illustrations had been neatly coloured by a previous owner.
However when I lifted it from the shelf in the bookshop it did seem heavy. I have checked it on the kitchen scales (e&oe) against my 1965 version. The 1937 version weighed 760 grams and the 1965 version 540 grams. Quite a difference.
Presumably this is down to superior quality paper and binding, although the 1937 version is 453 pages against 448 pages for the 1965 version.
Has anyone else noticed this difference? It would be interesting to learn what the early pre war versions in the US published by Lippincott weighed.