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Re: Assistance required with Fellowship of the Ring UK 1st Editions

Subject: Re: Assistance required with Fellowship of the Ring UK 1st Editions
by Deagol on 2006/9/4 11:36:58

Trotter -

My 7th Impression from 1957 shows the line of dots.

The difference may be due to different binding sizes. Most impressions of FR are Medium 8vo size (with pages about 14cm wide), while a few impressions were cut to the slightly smaller Demi 8vo size (with pages about 13.5cm wide).

Was it you that contacted me a while ago about the lettering on the spine of the binding of 4th Impression copies of FR? I have found some additional information on this in the A&U archive. The books were bound in 2 or 3 batches - Purnells (the printers/binders) mistakenly blocked the first batch in silver rather than gold foil and used the wrongly style of lettering. A&U complained when they were charged for the wrong type of blocking foil. Presumably Purnells then checked the example of the binding that they had been supplied with and rectified the error for later copies.