I noticed at Amazon and DeepDiscount that Tess is coming out as both a 'Special Edition' and a 'Classic DVD and Book Edition'. I can't find any description of what the "book" is, though. Is it a copy of Thomas Hardy's novel, or a booklet about the film?

I went to the studio's website and it lists a couple of featurettes for the SE, but not for the Book Edition. So you can't have both? And to make it even more confusing, they list differing running times of 127m and 172m, but I'm guessing that's a mistake.

Prices vary. DDD has the Book Edition for 36 cents less than the SE, but at Amazon the Book Edition costs over four dollars more.

Does anyone have access to any accurate, reliable specs for these two versions?

According to Deep Discount your choices are either:

Title: TESS (SE)
Director:
Year: 0
Runtime: 172M
Rating: NR
Language: English
Closed Captioned: N
UPC: 04339601707
Item Number: COL001707D
Special Features

DVD Features:

Region (unknown)
Keep Case
Anamorphic Widescreen - 2.35
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
Subtitles - English, Spanish, French - Optional
Additional Release Material:
Featurette - 1. "Tess: From Novel to Screen"
2. "Filming Tess"
3. "Tess: The Experience"

OR

Title: TESS (WITH BOOK)
Director:
Year: 0
Runtime: 172M
Rating: NR
Language: English
Closed Captioned: N
UPC: 04339607905
Item Number: COL007905D
Special Features

DVD Features

Region (unknown)
Anamorphic Widescreen - 2.35
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
Subtitles - English, Spanish, French - Optional
Additional Product
Limited edition book

It is a copy of Thomas Hardy's novel.