The Amazon listing for the trade, appears to have put up some additional images along with the early mock ups. A little different than the initial images.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lord-Rings-J-R-Tolkien/dp/0008471282

Looks nice! The initial renders looked....I dunno, choppy??

Also, I hope this means that the page edges will be white instead of red. (The product description for the HarperCollins edition has no mention of them, whereas the one from Mariner Books does....hmm.)

The red with the white runes on them looked horrible, in that render.

Ah, I really liked the red page edges with the inscription

It's an interesting idea and concept, though I found it looked unappealing in the earlier render.

Why would the runes run over onto the spine like that? I can't imagine the final cover will look like that.

Khamûl wrote:

Why would the runes run over onto the spine like that? I can't imagine the final cover will look like that.

That was my first thought - looks terrible and random like that. I assume the dimensions of the real thing will be such that that doesn't happen. Glad they appear to have dropped the red page edges. I hated those.

Don't like the signature on the front of this (don't like it on the deluxe, either) -- looks a bit tacky.

I don't see how those curved corners would work with the lines of the runes continuing parallel around the curved fold onto the inside of the cover. Would need some strange magic, I think. I hope the real thing has less radiused corners.

This mock-up also makes it look like the book will have no dust-jacket, which I greatly doubt will be the case. I regard this as conceptual, not actual.

Aelfwine wrote:

This mock-up also makes it look like the book will have no dust-jacket, which I greatly doubt will be the case. I regard this as conceptual, not actual.

Yeah, I've been running on the assumption that they are going with printed boards instead, given that their mockups do usually correctly indicate a jacket when there is one. I hope it is just a jacketed normal volume, and the designers aren't super-familiar with the software, though.

I've just read J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator and The Art of the Lord of the Rings, and I'm even more excited for this upcoming book.

The book description currently states that it will have 3 b/w illus, 30 col plates, but which 30 could they be? There are a number of obvious ones (like the ones pointed out previously in the 2005 Tolkien Calendar ), but which would be the rest, and who gets to select them?

Maybe they will somehow include The King's Letter, and hopefully The Doors of Durin "as white line on black, representing a silver line in the darkness", or "in two shades of grey" (TAoTLotR).

Taken the plunge on this and cancelled my Amazon order, and ordered instead from A Great Read, both Trade & Deluxe for £127.58 with free shipping.