None of the books in this series have ever been issued as hardbacks. Keeping costs down is essential with books of this sort. I might be wrong but what would be the advantage of a hardback anyway? When I get a book, and I have a couple of thousand, all I'm interested is what's inside it. Some of them are falling apart but that's actually the hardbacks anyway. Just curious! My original copies of the Purslow editions, apart from Foggy Dew which was badly bound, are all still in one piece after 50 years.