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All I can add to the conversation is that the Wikipedia article & author have been referenced (with praise) by the article author Steven M. Frisby in Scull/Hammond's "The Tolkien Collector" issue #30, but I have not seen one of these orange bindings myself. I will keep digging to see if I can find out more.
dunedain wrote:
Hi Trotter,
IMO its awfully hard to be better than the UK 1st or 2nd impressions. But, I do like the larger size of the US. Made for more comfortable reading, to me.
I had forgotten about that, and you are right, I also like the larger font size of the US edition
I conversed with the author of the Wikipedia article, and here is his clarification for the library binding states seen:
There are, in fact, library bindings that have a silk-screen of Hobbiton as it appears on the American first edition dust jacket and as the frontispiece. That is what “mimics the first edition dust jacket” refers to.
As for a hobbit on the front boards, I have seen library bindings with: The bowing hobbit at the upper right, as in the publisher’s front board; bowing hobbit in the center; and a sort of Dutch elf (at least, wooden shoes and Dutch boy’s garb) in the center, as in the eBay lot you referenced.
I was doing some research into a book I just purchased and I came across this thread. I believe it's a copy of the library binding that you were looking for, however it's in blue cloth. I'll attach a few photos in case anyone was still interested. The book appears to be a US first edition, third state, with the corrected Chapter VII and none of the printing errors seen in the fourth state. There are no maps in this copy but the four color illustrations are all present.
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