Where to buy Oxford Classical Texts?

[LCN]

I would like a to purchase a number of OCTs and was wondering if there is an online seller that sells them more cheaply than others.

I have checked the used sales service on Amazon but prices are often the same as for new texts, or only slightly cheaper.

I would actually be willing to travel within the US if there is a used bookstore somewhere with a large variety of these that sells them for half price. Unlikely I suppose.

[Westcott]

I know of a number of bookshops in the UK that specialize in classics, but you can find their books on larger sites. My favorite for academc books is vialibri, which searches 50 sites including abe, amazon, etc. Their search engine isn't as nicely refined as some others, though, if you only wanted to search US shops, etc. Happy hunting!

[Polyidos]

I can't say that I know of booksellers who sell OCT titles at substantial discounts but there are several book search aggregators, in addition to vialibre, that might help out. I have used bookfinder.com, biblio.com. and choosebooks.com (now ZVAB.com). Each search engine accesses many dozens of other sites. Of course, they might not show every possible match at every site so you sometimes have to be persistent to find a decent price on a copy in a decent condition if you choose to buy a "used" copy. (Some of them are ex libris and are actually in great shape, others were privately owned and are in terrible condition.)

I will say that the prices listed for new copies at OUP's website are unbelievably high at the moment. While used copies listed on Amazon can be relative bargains, I would certainly advise you to use some of the other book search sites to be sure that you really getting "value for money", as the Brits say.

I will say that sometimes, OUP does have sales on these titles, even new editions, so if you are not on their mailing list for their Classical Studies catalogs, I would certainly suggest signing up.

[Scribo]

I'm a student at Oxford, Even with my meagre discount card (I get 15% off from the OUP shop or I can aggregate discount points from blackwells) the price of these things are insane.

This term for example I'm required to get through the Odyssey (2) the Hymns and the cyclic fragments (1) and Hesiod's Erga (1) which comes to £80 if I want to actually own the texts. Thankfully my college library isn't that bad and I already own all 5 Homer texts but...Mithra!

Gone are the days of being given photocopies by one's tutor, it seems.

[zamer9876]

I also have problems in finding a good Oxford Classical Texts in my country. I'm from Malaysia. I can't find it in my popular book store. The only place I can find it is through Amazon. I have no option than that. I just buy the The Oxford Classical Dictionary by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. and the shipping require more than 10 days to arrive at my place.

[pster]

Well, I perhaps have more flexibility than others, but I have been able to find pretty good deals on most of my Greek texts. There is much more than just amazon. You need to take advantage of the different amazons, amazon.fr being a fair bit different from amazon.co.uk. And there are different abebooks (abebooks.com, abebooks.co.uk, abebooks.de, etc), and abebooks is better overall than amazon. Then there is alibris.com, antikvariat.se, ebay.it, ebay.fr, etc, etc. And there are big disparities.

For example, Homer Opera IV new for $50:
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/? ... =relevancy

But new on abebooks.fr for 18EUR with free shipping to UK:
http://www.abebooks.fr/servlet/SearchRe ... =t&x=0&y=0

What I suggest is:

1) Figure out early what books you will need,

2) Figure out how flexible you are with respect to editions,

3) Get the ISBN numbers,

4) Search all the sites you can think of. And save those searches right after you do them on your menu bar in a folder browser depending.

5) You can then run those searches every so often in a matter of seconds.

6) You can score some sweet deals that way. If you want the Hornblower commentaries for Thucydides, you will have to pay. But recently I got a Weil Polybius VI (Les Belles Lettres, French) ex-library (somewhere in Wales) hardcover, probably never checked out, great condition for about $10, where new would have been closer to $50, and it is arguably the best version available, only competitor being a much older Teubner.

It is supply and demand, and there is not great demand for classics texts especially if it happens to be a Teubner in South Carolina (hint, hint ).

And hell, sometimes you can just print out a nice GFS Porson fonted version from the web and console yourself that you have nice big beautiful font to read and big margins to fill with all your profound insights. Actually, I am rather horrified by the smallish fonts that seem to be used in just about all Greek texts, and I may just switch to printouts and ring binders in the not too distant future; I am not happy when I can't make out the breathing mark under a circumflex. (Does anybody else have this problem??)

I'm not a student, so I'm not sure how helpful this is to all of you, but I more or less refuse to spend much on a Greek book anymore for the simple reason that if a book costs $30, I can probably find three that are just as good for $10, I'll read the three Demosthenes now, wait on the one Xenophon. The texts are thousands of years old, the best scholarship was done over 100 years ago, we are well into the public domain for the most part, I would try to avoid blowing money on Greek texts unless it is some version you absolutely have to have.