New Study of LOTR Announced
Xoanon @ 9:30 am EST
TolkienBooks.net has published plans for a series of fourteen articles tracing the early publishing history of The Lord of the Rings.
While the process of writing The Lord of the Rings has been described in detail by Christopher Tolkien in the History of Middle-earth series, less is known of the production and early publishing history of the books.
Some of Tolkien’s thoughts and actions are recorded in the selection of his letters that have been published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, and Wayne Hammond’s Tolkien bibliography includes a fairly detailed chronology of events up to the publication of The Return of the King in October 1955, but there is great deal more information that is not so widely available. This includes Rayner Unwin’s account of his relationship with Tolkien in his book George Allen & Unwin: A Remembrancer, and correspondence held in the Allen & Unwin archive at Reading University.
The articles will cover a variety of aspects of the bibliography of The Lord of the Rings and will, when completed, trace the publishing history from Tolkien’s attempts to secure the publication of both LotR and The Silmarillion in the early 1950s through to the publication of the Second Edition in the mid-1960s. The article titles are:
1. Who will publish this “Monster”?
2. The Early Publishing History of The Fellowship of the Ring
3. The Early Publishing History of The Two Towers
4. The Early Publishing History of The Return of the King
5. The First Impression of The Return of the King
6. The First Boxed Edition
7. The Readers Union Edition
8. The First Deluxe Edition
9. Print Run Sizes and Dates
10. A Brief Guide to the Houghton Mifflin Edition
11. The Ace Books Affair
12. The Second Edition
13. The Lord of the Rings – An Illustrated Bibliography
14. The Lord of the Rings – A Bibliography of Boxed Sets
For further details visit An Illustrated Tolkien Bibliography – http://www.tolkienbooks.net/html/lotr-notes.htm
New Study of LOTR Announced
New Study of LOTR Announced
Spotted this on TORN.
The Vinyamars on Stage! This time at Bag End
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Old_Tom_Bombadil
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Yeah, I have to say that I'm more interested in the content than the publishing history.
I highly recommend Tom Shippey's two books, The Road to Middle-earth and Author of the Century, for anyone interested in superb analysis. Shippey's ability to take very complex subjects and explain them in a logical, easy-to-understand way is amazing.
Oh, and a book I purchased online yesterday after seeing an advert in the Amon Hen (the bulletin of the Tolkien Society): The Roots of Tolkien's Middle-earth. It is not yet offered at Amazon.com so I purchased it directly from the publisher, Tempus Publishing.
The advert indicates the book is "A pictorial guide to the places now and then that led to the development of Middle-earth". I bought the book in hopes of one day visiting some of these places myself. Failing that, I might at least see if I can find prints of photographs of these places, have them framed, and display them in my home. I'd definitely like to find some smallish photographs of standing stones.
I highly recommend Tom Shippey's two books, The Road to Middle-earth and Author of the Century, for anyone interested in superb analysis. Shippey's ability to take very complex subjects and explain them in a logical, easy-to-understand way is amazing.
Oh, and a book I purchased online yesterday after seeing an advert in the Amon Hen (the bulletin of the Tolkien Society): The Roots of Tolkien's Middle-earth. It is not yet offered at Amazon.com so I purchased it directly from the publisher, Tempus Publishing.
The advert indicates the book is "A pictorial guide to the places now and then that led to the development of Middle-earth". I bought the book in hopes of one day visiting some of these places myself. Failing that, I might at least see if I can find prints of photographs of these places, have them framed, and display them in my home. I'd definitely like to find some smallish photographs of standing stones.
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Voronwë the Faithful
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Hi. This new study is my work. It is aimed primarily at book collectors and book dealers, so is by its very nature only of niche interest. That said, the site attracts 15-20,000 visitors per month, so there are plenty of us niche-people out there!
An Illustrated Tolkien Bibliography
www.tolkienbooks.net
www.tolkienbooks.net
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Voronwë the Faithful
- At the intersection of here and now
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- Contact:
Déagol, welcome to The Hall of Fire! (I already welcomed you in the Welcome forum, but one can never be too welcome!) I think it will be probably be of interest to those of us that are somewhat obsessively interested in all aspects of Tolkien's work (if you've glanced at my thread on the creation of the published Silmarillion, you'll understand what I mean 
).
I would definitely be interested in learning more about your work.
). I would definitely be interested in learning more about your work.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
I noticed that some traffic was coming to my site from here, so I thought I would come and visit you. I have been pleasantly surprised by the level of interest in my project, which bodes well for the future.
I started collecting different editions of Tolkien's works about 10 years ago. When you start looking into the details it throws up a lot of questions, so I decided to see if answers could be found in the correspondence held at the Allen and Unwin archive at Reading University. This includes carbon copies of all of the letters sent by A&U from 1940-1968 and various publishing ledgers from the 30s, 40s and 50s. (Sadly no letters from or to Tolkien though - they are with HarperCollins) The correspondence includes letters to printers, binders, other publishers, book clubs, illustrators, etc and from this you can get a good idea of how the production of the books progressed.
My project will hopefully explain how all the variations, oddities and changes to the text came to be, and will put some figures on how many copies of each impression were printed - this sort of information is of interest to collectors, so they can judge how rare or uncmmon a book really is.
I also hope to give more info on the troubles experienced getting the books into print and on the battle against the Ace Books pirate edition.
It is a mammoth task - I have been through the correspondence with the printers for 1956-1966, and still have to look at 1952 to 1955, which amounts to about 9,000 letters in all! When you add to that other publishers, books clubs, plate makers, box makers, etc it is a lot of work!
I was very pleased with how the information came together for the article on the First Boxed Edition. Hopefully I will be able to do similar things for each of the 3 volumes.
I started collecting different editions of Tolkien's works about 10 years ago. When you start looking into the details it throws up a lot of questions, so I decided to see if answers could be found in the correspondence held at the Allen and Unwin archive at Reading University. This includes carbon copies of all of the letters sent by A&U from 1940-1968 and various publishing ledgers from the 30s, 40s and 50s. (Sadly no letters from or to Tolkien though - they are with HarperCollins) The correspondence includes letters to printers, binders, other publishers, book clubs, illustrators, etc and from this you can get a good idea of how the production of the books progressed.
My project will hopefully explain how all the variations, oddities and changes to the text came to be, and will put some figures on how many copies of each impression were printed - this sort of information is of interest to collectors, so they can judge how rare or uncmmon a book really is.
I also hope to give more info on the troubles experienced getting the books into print and on the battle against the Ace Books pirate edition.
It is a mammoth task - I have been through the correspondence with the printers for 1956-1966, and still have to look at 1952 to 1955, which amounts to about 9,000 letters in all! When you add to that other publishers, books clubs, plate makers, box makers, etc it is a lot of work!
I was very pleased with how the information came together for the article on the First Boxed Edition. Hopefully I will be able to do similar things for each of the 3 volumes.
An Illustrated Tolkien Bibliography
www.tolkienbooks.net
www.tolkienbooks.net
<slaps head>
Book collectors! Of course, silly me. That would make sense.
I like books, but am not a collector, hence my confusion. I'm glad you have so much interest already - I hope the project goes well! And despite my earlier comment, I am interested how certain variations showed up in the text, so I will be interested to see what you come up with.
Book collectors! Of course, silly me
. That would make sense. I like books, but am not a collector, hence my confusion. I'm glad you have so much interest already - I hope the project goes well! And despite my earlier comment, I am interested how certain variations showed up in the text, so I will be interested to see what you come up with
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Old_Tom_Bombadil
- friend to badgers – namer of ponies
- Posts: 1980
- Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:56 pm
- Location: The Withywindle Valley
There was this guy who had a booth at the recent Middle Earth Festival in Vacaville, CA that had a very impressive collection of various editions of The Lord of the Rings and other books by Tolkien. I can definitely see a book of this nature being a valuable resource to book collectors/dealers like this fellow.Déagol wrote:Hi. This new study is my work. It is aimed primarily at book collectors and book dealers, so is by its very nature only of niche interest.
