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Guide to Tolkien's Letters
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12
3 Jan, 2016
2016-1-3 4:17:03 PM UTC
I noticed a couple of very minor issues, which look to be to a matter of editorial changes, rather than actual incorrect text in the latest edition. As an example on page 1129 (line 17), the first edition has the word 'dealings' and the latest version says 'dealing'. I prefer 'dealings' as in the first edition, but both are correct, and it would not seem appropriate for any changes to be made in this case.

It's worth noting even "very minor issues": there may not be any effect on meaning, but one must also consider the author's intent. In regard to dealing/dealings, this is an interesting difference as it didn't enter in any of the usual places in the history of publication. I suspected that the -s may have been dropped by accident in the 1994 resetting, which has "dealing"; but then I checked the first printing of the second Allen & Unwin edition, and that has "dealing" too. From this I suspected that "dealing" may have entered in the Ballantine text, from which Allen & Unwin took the Appendices for their second edition, Tolkien's marked copy for Ballantine having been lost; but Ballantine has "dealings", following the first edition. The error "dealing" entered, then, in the Allen & Unwin second, and has persisted unnoticed.

I would call this an error on the basis of "dealings" in the first edition, which is also in the comparable text from the manuscript printed in Peoples of Middle-earth, and from "dealings" in the Ballantine text which suggests that Tolkien didn't mark it for change, and from the fact that all other instances of the word in The Lord of the Rings with similar usage have "dealings".

Wayne
12
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