by Larry W. » March 12th, 2008, 12:35 pm
Not too many people objected to the poor quality of the Macmillan paperbacks during the 1970's. Years later I compared them with the better hardcovers and saw how in the paperbacks the illustrations were cut down and how poor the quality of the paper was. People would say, if you want better books, just buy the hardcover set, which was very expensive. The paperbacks were not cheap back then either (I think it was around three or four dollars a book). It was an expense at that time for a college student buying all seven books to read for a course. Professors used to apologize for the high price of books that students had to buy for their classes, although of course it wasn't the professors' fault.
The reading order didn't seem to be as much of an issue back in the sixties and seventies, but then most just read the books in the published order. Little was said about the alternative, which many people wouldn't bother with-- perhaps because they thought of the books as adventure stories rather than a strict history of Narnia.
Larry W.