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From War of the Ring.net War of the Ring Harper Collins send us word that two new editions of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are due for release this winter. Both have extensive corrections as well as additional content. Best of all they are fantastically bound editions, which are so hard to get hold of. The Lord of the Rings The text has been completely reset and corrected, in a setting that is easy to read. When The Fellowship of the Ring was first reprinted in September 1954, the publishers had to quickly reset it because they had not kept the original printing plates. This introduced some errors that have remained undetected for 50 years! The editors of this edition, Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull, have been through the original manuscripts and had access to Tolkien’s own annotated editions to produce a list of nearly 400 changes, from spelling corrections to reinstating complete sentences. All have been personally approved by Christopher Tolkien. The book now includes a full colour plate section containing the three facsimile pages from The Book of Mazarbul, painstakingly created by Tolkien for the original edition but never before included for reasons of cost. These appear in The Lord of the Rings for the very first time. Also included are the three original red and black maps by Christopher Tolkien, rather than the redrawn single-colour ones which were used in the 1990s editions. Two of these appear as fold-out sheets that can be easily referred to when reading the story. The index has also been revised and updated for the new edition. Printed on superior acid-free paper with red silk ribbon marker and sumptuously quarter-bound in deep red, it is foil-stamped in two colours front and back, and housed in a matching red slipcase. The slipcase features a circular cut-out, through which can be seen the Ring device on the front cover.
THE HOBBIT The text has been completely reset and corrected. Includes the definitive, corrected version of the text by Douglas Anderson, which has only previously appeared in The Annotated Hobbit (2003). Includes all Tolkien’s illustrations as colour plates. These comprise 5 original paintings, the 8 coloured versions of his line drawings by H.E. Riddett, commissioned for the deluxe edition in 1979 and not published since, plus a full colour painting of the three trolls by Tolkien which has never before appeared in The Hobbit. All have been rescanned from the original artworks. Includes a unique 16-page introduction by Christopher Tolkien about the history of The Hobbit, illustrated with sketches and drawings. Includes Thror’s map as a gatefold with the ‘magic’ runes printed on the back so they can be seen when held up to the light, as Tolkien originally intended. Includes Tolkien’s Map of Wilderland, reproduced for the first time in three colours – red, blue and black – as Tolkien originally requested. Includes Tolkien’s drawing of Mirkwood as the front endpaper, appearing here for the first time in a post-war edition. Printed on superior acid-free paper with silk ribbon marker and sumptuously quarter-bound in forest green, the book is foil-stamped in two colours on the front with the Smaug the Dragon device, and is housed in a matching green slipcase. The slipcase features a circular cut-out, through which can be seen the rune that marks the secret entrance to Smaug’s lair. More details and hopefully a look at the books when we get it. Watch this space. © Copyright 2003,2004 by warofthering.net This notice cannot be removed without permission. |