Escoffier vs. The Escoffier

[Dangel]

I'm hoping to get an opinion comparing and contrasting these two books:

Amazon.com: Escoffier: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery: Books: H. L. Cracknell,R. J. Kaufmann
at $44.10

and

Amazon.com: The Escoffier Cook Book: A Guide To the Fine Art Of French Cuisine: Books: Auguste Escoffier
at $17.13

I will be getting a few books for Christmas and Escoffier is on my wish list. There is an obvious price difference here and I am wondering if the additional cost is worth it. They are both english translations of Le Guide Culinaire and each have mixed customer reviews on Amazon. I don't want anyone to spend extra money needlessly -but- spending money on a watered down version is even more wasteful in my book. Thanks.

[adamm]

Im not sure but my guess is the 44 dollar one is put out by willey and i think its more of a traslation into the english than the other. The other one is put out by a different publisher, maybe the same one the french version is published by. The 17 dolllar one says it only has 2000 some recipes and i have the 44 dollar one and it has well into 4000. I dont know if this helps any but that would be my guess the difference is.

[Dangel]

Thanks Adamm, I'm going to guess that you're probably right. 2000 or so less recipes is a really extensive job of editing and paring down! Personally I'd rather have a direct translation than an abridged interpretation - I don't want someone else deciding what parts of a gem will/won't interest me. I suppose that The Escoffier version might have been published for sale primarily to interested/advanced home cooks (guessing).