Shame on me for ordering a Teubner that came out more than a year or two ago and thinking I might get a proper book instead of print-on-demand junk. I wish the International ISBN Agency would force publishers to use separate ISBNs when the quality is so wildly disparate between “hardcover” bindings.
Teubner editions have had this reputation forever. I had a text as an undergrad way back in the 20th century (around 1980 or so) which fell apart halfway through the semester, as did everybody else’s in the class.
Interesting. I have Teubners from just about every decade since the 1950s, and they all have quality bindings until the print-on-demand junk started in the 2010s. Even then, early print runs still, I think, used proper bindings. Was your 1980s copy clothbound? Surely it wasn’t print-on-demand back then, or was it? OUP, of course, has done the same thing for a while. For a few years of blissful ignorance I thought CUP hadn’t succumbed, but then I got my first print-on-demand Green and Yellow . . . Come to think of it, the worst-quality OCTs I have that weren’t printed on demand are from the early eighties.
Actually, yes, it was clothbound. Our professor said he had had a similar experience when he used a Teubner text in graduate school some 20 or so years before, so I expanded that factoid to be a general truth about the product. I’m glad it wasn’t universal. But good to know about these POD’s. While I have nearly every classical text available electronically, I still prefer to read from print editions…
I have the first print run of that Odyssey, and it is sturdily bound. But I purchased a later print run of his Iliad (vol. 1, since they haven’t even bothered with a hardbound vol. 2), and had exactly the same problems that you did, along with poor print dpi. I think they go cheap with later runs (but they keep the price high!). My decades-old clothbound Teubner Euclid is a stark contrast. Wonderfully bound and easy to read.
You need to buy a copy from the first edition, immediately. Don’t wait for the pback edition.
The first eds are better quality; they’re intended to serve for twenty years or so of library use.
Later print runs are bad.
Unfortunately this means books have become a lot more expensive, since waiting for the paperback is no good.
Pre POD, pre-De Gruyter Teubners are excellent. I often prefer Teubner editions to OCTs.
OCTs from the early eighties are notorious for their cheap yellowing paper.