It’s finally here, the bound edition of the Libertarian Forum that serious collectors and readers only dreamed about a few years ago. Those who were lucky enough to have the complete set held onto them for dear life.
After all, their value was legendary: the Libertarian Forum, edited by Murray N. Rothbard from 1969 to 1984, had a small, even tiny, circulation but it forged the intellectual edifice known as libertarianism.
Month after month, the newsletter thrilled, enlightened, shocked, and awed its subscribers. Everything was on the table, and no thought or idea too controversial. And here are all the issues again, as smart, gossipy, and fresh as they were when they were first written.
Two massive, large-format, trade paperbacks: $70
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They look great on the outside, at least. Have they been retypeset, or are these copies of the original newsletters?
They are the original newsletters, the best editions available, completely unedited, exactly as they originally appeared. We considered resetting them but decided that this would actually reduce their value, since the originals are so rare. 1200 pages, oversized edition, two volumes, $70. An unbelievable number of words printed here.
They’re stealing this word too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
This is a question about the second comment. What does “oversized edition” mean? Is there an introduction, index, table of contents? Tells us a little more about the quality of the reproduction, the paper, the printing. In other words how easy on the eyes is the reading? I started reading The Libertarian Forum early on always delighting in seeing it in the mail along with bills and junk mail.
The size is 8.5×11, acid free paper, very clear printing, and glossy and thick covers. It has a complete index. The issues appear small here than in real life, so the print is a bit small by comparison but that was necessary to keep the margins wide and not make the whole project unweildy. There is no index (it would have been an nearly impossible task). The two volumes look about 3+ inches thick.
Jeffrey: “It has a complete index….There is no index….”
Which is it?
Sorry about that. It has a complete table of contents, article by article–hundreds of them–but no word index (just the though of an index for such a volume is chilling). Anyway, if the point of index is to help you get around the book, that’s not a problem here since the articles are short and nicely labeled by topic, 19th century style.
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