I don't know, The Silmarillion & UT are pretty uniform; dyed top page edges and all. And they don't differ markedly from the early GA&U HoME titles either; especially (again) vol. 1 - IV with their dyed top edges. CoH is, as you state, a book that is seperated from these titles by a few decades (& companies!). Of course you could buy uniform copies of all in their new format: the Hx Hobbit format for want of a better description.

BH

(Altho' I don't actually have a copy...) I suspect Jewels might be suseptible to light damage as well. I always ask about sun fading to any jacketed book with red on the spine.

Trotter, I would keep any red (or redish) spines out of direct light. I personally don't have any of the HoME on display at present. They're in a glass doored bookcase behind numerous other (less important) books (all doubled up -running out of room!). I think they are also turned spine inwards!

I tend to use a lot of 'buffer' books on my shelfs: Unimportant books sitting (cover facing outwards) in front of the collection proper. That way very little light gets at spines. I could have the curtains drawn, but its my front room (lounge/main room) and not always possible/desirable. It seems the easiest solution until such times as I get a house, with a seperate room that can be used exclusively for all the precious collection...

BH

(Eric the Red) Inconsistency! Nonsense isn't it? Look at that lovely UK set tho'...

(Stu) So what did you end up with then? Did you go for priced, or un-priced jackets? -or is it an inconsistent mixture of the two!? (ahh... the great Export/Domestic debate!) Any one volume a bargain, or a real over spend? Would you reveal how much the full set cost to assemble? (comfortably <£1000?)

BH

Indeed, the answer is basically no. I think if you want to put the published Silmarillion in context, you really have to read HoME; altho' the Hx LotRs is perhaps not essential.

Funny Stu, I think (I'm guessing tho', since I was a small child when this series first came out!) most people when the series came out quite like BoLTs; and were quite disappointed at some of the later books. Perhaps because the BoLTs books can be viewed (and read) as stand alone volumes; and don't 'interfere' with the published Silmarillion so much as some of the later volumes do.

Personally I'm the least interested (hard to say that!; still very interested...) in the volumes that cover LotRs, from a 'Middle-earth' perspective i.e. the are really (to me) primary world texts, showing Tolkien the author; very interesting just like Rateliff's Hx Hobbit. But Shaping, MR, Jewels, & Peoples really have an abundance of 'new' material so to speak. These (in my mind) sit in a hazy, indistinct world between primary world Tolkien (biography, author), and secondary world Tolkien (Middle-earth).

This cross-over between primary and secondary reaches it most complex in these later volumes: this 'soup' of redactors, translations, oral tradition, texts, 'lost' texts, multiple texts, history, conflicting versions, condensed story, authorship, editorship, publication etc etc -something which I feel plays out in the real history of the published Silmarillion i.e. the work of father & son (and Kay!). Which I suppose strikes at the heart (if my stab at explaining why I think I like Tolkien made any sense!) of why I'm totally obsessed with The Silmarillion .

BH

I was going to say no . Thanks for keeping us up to date Wayne. Look forward to reading them...

BH