(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

What about Children of Hurin, the Silmarrillion, and Unfinished tales. Should they match?

Thanks,

Eric

A couple of great topics mixed around here, I'll try to touch on all of them:

Trotter/Khamul - I don't know how many copies of BoLT 1/Return of the Shadow I have seen with a faded spine - the "black" dustjacket fades to a very unlovely shade of purple if exposed to sun too long, so it's probably using some similar red dyes. I do agree that red dustjackets are very susceptible to sunlight fading, but keep them all out of direct sunlight! Even the white dustjackets of the first edition LoTRs get all brown and crackly from sunlight over time.

Stu - I wish I had had relatives that "together" when I was growing up, getting me books like that! One cautionary note, your Grandmother's birthday card is probably not acid-free, so you might want to wrap it in archival tissue paper at the very least, or you may end up with a slightly brown ghost-image of the card on the touching pages of the book over time. On your other topic, my best find was a couple of UK Peoples I found in a US specialty bookstore at list price (converted to US$, at that time they were about $50 each), and this was in 2002 or so - they had been sitting on the shelves like that for years.

Eric the Red - I am not sitting near my copies of UT and Silmarillion right now, but in general those three books don't match in size, binding materials, etc. Not even the various deluxe/super deluxe editions that HarperCollins has put out over the years match in size or quality, and that's a shame.

Eric the Red The British George Allen & Unwin first hardback editions The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and The Children of Húrin match the UK History of Middle-Earth Hardbacks in that they are the same height, but no other similarity, which is not surprising given that The Silmarillion was published in 1977 and The Children of Húrin in 2007 (30 years later).

The US editions do not match even in size as far as I am aware.

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