AD&D 1E Best 1E AD&D rulebook?

[el-remmen]

Here is where I put my pitch for the Fiend Folio. Despite the fact that I still reach for the 1E DMG more than any other edition's DMG (despite having always run the most recent edition of D&D - save 4th), it would still come in second and the Fiend Folio is above all others.

I got both the MM and FF when I was still running B/X (and later B/X/C - never getting the Master or Immortals sets of BECMI when things switched over in the Basic game) and used them constantly. The FF was especially evocative, not only is the art still my favorite D&D art (Russ Nicholson primarily), but the very weirdness of the creatures in there (even the clunkers) and the source (curated monsters folks sent in to White Dwarf) encouraged homebrew and reimagining various monsters, their habitats, behaviors, and looks.

I call it the best AD&D book because I still love to page through it for inspiration, and it has remained useful through running B/X/C(MI), 1E, 2E, 3E, and now 5E.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm very sad we didn't get a Russ Nicholson retrospective art book before he died. The best we've got is the Magic Realms book, but that's all of the Fighting Fantasy artists, and Nicholson only gets one section of the book, and a lot of the illustrations in the book are quarter pagers, rather than filling whole pages with their weirdness.