CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: An Illuminated Edition

This edition has fantastic art. Dave McKean’s work is outstanding. The production is also good quality, with sewn bindings are good quality paper. But, it is NOT a book to read for two reasons. First, the translation is Constance Garnett, who was the original translator of the Russian greats and is now considered outdated and inaccurate. Made everything sound like Dickens. There are many better translations these days that most people prefer to this one. But, they weren’t out of copyright. Second, and more importantly, the font is too small. There is no way to comfortably read the book. Tiny. Ridiculously tiny. I suspect the good folk at Beehive were thinking of this is an art book and not a reading copy. But, there is no reason it couldn’t be both.

. I was extremely excited to receive this book. When I opened the package, comma it was absolutely beautiful and I couldn't have been more happy. The issue came about when I opened the book to read it. The 1st thing that caught my attention is the size size 6 or 7 font that they have decided to print this book in. I'm only 35 years old and I could barely read it. The next issue is the material that the cover is made out of. It's like a Brown bag paper type big paper type of book cover. Which on the hard flaps of the book are fine but when it's on the spine it bends and cracks just from gently opening it. So now the beautiful book has a messed up spine with veins and distress marks and crumple marks and I've only opened it 3 times very gently on a table flat. The more I keep opening it I can tell that the spine will eventually tear and and not connect to the book anymore. This was devastating for me because the artwork is superb and I was so excited to have such a beautiful book on my shelf

This is a wonderful edition. It's useless talking of the story or the writer, here we are on the higher peaks of literature. But the book itself as an object is outstanding, Dave McKean gives a solid prove of his maestry, the kind of paper , the choise of the box, everything makes of this a great bought.