Roubo's work is one of the most referenced historical texts in the hand tool woodworking community and until recently you would have to learn French to be able to read it. Sadly I am not literate in French so I was only able to enjoy the engraved images scattered throughout the book. However, thanks to Lost Art Press and the efforts of a small group of individuals there is now an English translation for all to enjoy.
I currently own both the deluxe edition and the standard edition from Lost Art Press. However, there are also scanned versions of the original French texts available in digital formats (I believe this is one such version: L'art du menuisier / par M. Roubo le fils, compagnon menuisier from NYPL Digital Gallery) to which we can compare these translations to. The deluxe edition is absolutely massive and doesn't fit on any of my bookshelves (which I guess just means I need to build a new bookshelf). The deluxe edition has a few color images which are mainly beneficial in the first section that focuses on the description of various woods and their color.
My French illiteracy makes it a bit difficult to compare this translation to the original or other works such as Diderot/Menuisier. However, when comparing to Moxon's or Nicholson's work it seems like Roubo takes greater care in describing how tasks were completed.
I very much hesitate to make any criticisms of this work since I can only imagine the amount of effort invested by the translators and publishers. Due to the tremendous efforts to translate it seems as though only parts of the original text will be translated. I hope that these current efforts prove so successful that there will be good reason to translate the entire text.
As far as recommending one edition over the other I would have to say that the standard edition is probably the best. As mentioned the deluxe edition may require special storage/shelving considerations. Further the benefit of the color photos are fairly limited. Since I was familiar with the species of wood depicted in the color photos I didn't find them to be extremely valuable.
I would have to say that my biggest criticism of the deluxe edition is the fact that it was sent to the publisher without all of the supplemental information. A few pages of text printed on standard 8.5 x 11 office paper was provided in the shipment with the deluxe edition but if I waited this long for the book and paid the premium for the deluxe edition I would have preferred this information been included. Granted I don't want to diminish the efforts to bring these two editions to print and I hope the individuals that where part of this processes will take these criticisms with a grain of salt since it is easy to criticize when I just have to sit on my couch waiting for you all to finish the work.
Pages: 264 (standard edition) 231 (deluxe edition) Publisher: Lost Art Press ISBN-13: 978-0-9850777-6-1 (standard edition) 978-0-9850777-5-4 (deluxe edition)