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Re: Blank / Dummy Silmarillions

Subject: Re: Blank / Dummy Silmarillions
by Khamûl on 2008/1/5 14:24:26

Well, Holford (

) states the following:

___________________________________________________________

Printed by Clowes & Sons.

Pre-publication dummy copy. According to a letter seen with one copy, these were distributed to booksellers to solicit pre-publication orders.

Dark blue cloth binding, with blue and white striped headband, dyed blue top edge and dark blue coloured dustwrapper.

Three variants have been seen:

1) With the pages printed up to page 32
2) With the pages printed up to page 35
3) With these pages blank

The copy of Variant 3 seen lacked a dustwrapper.

Most copies come in the unpriced export jacket, but one copy of the 32 page variant has been seen in a priced domestic dustwrapper. Whether this was as issued is uncertain.

Courtesy of Tolkienbooks.net
___________________________________________________________

So I guess this is pretty much all thats been seen. The priced variant sounds unlikely if it was Clowes (as their jackets were unpriced).

Deagol!? Was the priced copy a Billing copy? Or have all dummy copies (seen) been Clowes 1rst impressions?

As an added point. The presence of only Clowes pre-publication copies (assuming this is the case) adds weight to the argument that Clowes was the main printer employed & that these copies were in production (or in this case pre-production) first.

BH