Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

A friend's post alerted me to mis-numbering of the Allan Quatermain series, which has been numbered according to dates the books were written - but this does not reflect the order of the events in the books. See here under "Chronological sequence of Haggard's Quatermain stories".

The problem, as you can see, is that short stories in one volume (Allan's Wife) interleave either side of two novels.
How,then, would you number these books?

As with all these series there are two ways to read them, publication or internal chronology. My preference (gets ready to run away) is always for publication order. On that basis Allan's Wife would seem to be book 3 with a note in the description on any weirdness.

http://www.goodreads.com/series/49580...

EDIT: I forgot to add that you could make a Chronological series if you want.

It does sound like a chronological series would be useful. I'd suggest listing Allan's Wife last as a non-primary work and numbering it "1.5, 2.5, 3.5, & 3.6" or just "short stories".

Cait wrote: "It does sound like a chronological series would be useful. I'd suggest listing Allan's Wife last as a non-primary work and numbering it "1.5, 2.5, 3.5, & 3.6" or just "short stories"."

You beat me to it! :) I was just thinking "Why are the short story volumes listed as primary works?"

Banjomike wrote: "My preference (gets ready to run away) is always for publication order."

Ah! I am so with you on that; the arguments I have gotten into over reading order when chron and pub order differ.

Monique wrote: "I was just thinking "Why are the short story volumes listed as primary works?""

The Sherlock Holmes primary list would be very short without the short story collections. 4 novels and 56 shorts.

Monique wrote: "I was just thinking "Why are the short story volumes listed as primary works?""

Well, that makes sense to me for the publication order numbering in a case like this, where the book as a unit was published as part of the ongoing series.