The Classics Redesigned Over and Over Again.

While running some weekend errands, I spotted a series of classic books that reminded me of the classics Jessica Hische designed for Barnes & Noble. It made me wonder who did which first, and if one set was designed to compete with the other?

These 3 books are examples of what Jessica Hische designed for Barnes & Nobel.
They feature bonded leather binding and foil stamping.

These are samples of the books I saw this weekend. They are from the Word Cloud Classic
series and have a flexible leatherette cover. Like the above books cover designed by
Jessica Hische, they also feature foil stamping. (Unfortunately this photo doesn't do them justice)

When I first thought about this topic to post, I thought it would be a simple "who did it better?" post, but as I did some online digging, I found that the classic novels such as Little Women, Huckleberry Finn, Jane Eyre, and so on have been designed and redesigned many times as "special editions." So, in addition to the countless editions and reprints, there is now an abundance of current printings of these books on the market.

These books are from Pengiun Books' Classic Clothbound series and
are designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

This has me wondering, do you think this is necessary? Are different publishers putting out these books at as direct competition between each other? And if your favorite classic was produced in many different ways, would you buy each of them just because you love the book and the design?