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The Hobbit Deluxe Edition 2004

14 Oct, 2021 (edited)
2021-10-14 1:54:27 PM UTC

Today ,(14th October 2021 ). I managed to have delivered to me the Hobbit Deluxe illustrated edition, which was published in 2004 ,
On the back it stated how it is the corrected version of this book , and I wondered if ny of you could give a little bit more insight a to why this was done both to the Hobbit , and to The Lord Of The Rings ? Please excuse my ignorance, as I have decided to delve back into the Tolkien books after first buying the all in one volume back in 1994, and shamefully never read , as at that time I find the pacing of the Lord Of The RIngs very plodding, but I was around 15 and 16 at the time .

5347_61683692dab0e.png 4032X3024 px
14 Oct, 2021
2021-10-14 2:06:12 PM UTC
All the HarperCollins Deluxe editions usually state that the text is fully-corrected, but that does not usually mean for that edition of the book.

The last main change of text for The Hobbit was The Annotated Hobbit and for the Lord of the Rings it was the 50th Anniversary edition, were the text was corrected.

Some minor corrections have taken place since then.
14 Oct, 2021
2021-10-14 8:54:40 PM UTC
The statement of "corrected" is just to pad out the bullet points on the insert sheet.
14 Oct, 2021
2021-10-14 9:02:51 PM UTC
Do you have the pocket sized set from a few years ago? Here’s a colour comparison.

4965_61689afbc55bc.jpeg 1135X2017 px
18 Oct, 2021
2021-10-18 10:01:40 AM UTC

Trotter wrote:

All the HarperCollins Deluxe editions usually state that the text is fully corrected, but that does not usually mean for that edition of the book.

The last main change of text for The Hobbit was The Annotated Hobbit and for the Lord of the Rings it was the 50th Anniversary edition, where the text was corrected.

Some minor corrections have taken place since then.
saw a Youtube review of this book from a few years ago , and it showed that it was printed in Hong Kong, then i notice my copy , which looks as though it's at the 11th printing , and is printed in Italy, is there any reason why they should suddenly swap printing houses ? thankyou
18 Oct, 2021
2021-10-18 7:43:24 PM UTC

Tolkienreader2021 wrote:

Trotter wrote:

All the HarperCollins Deluxe editions usually state that the text is fully corrected, but that does not usually mean for that edition of the book.

The last main change of text for The Hobbit was The Annotated Hobbit and for the Lord of the Rings it was the 50th Anniversary edition, where the text was corrected.

Some minor corrections have taken place since then.
saw a Youtube review of this book from a few years ago , and it showed that it was printed in Hong Kong, then i notice my copy , which looks as though it's at the 11th printing , and is printed in Italy, is there any reason why they should suddenly swap printing houses ? thankyou


Reprints have often shifted between printers. It is a cost and production availability thing. Interesting that this one has come back from China to Italy (Rotolito, I assume). I have no idea of HarperCollins reasoning, beyond it is obviously economically and logistically rational for them to have switched printer.

If I was a large publisher, I'd certainly be trying to hedge my bets with regards to the percentage of production being in China. COVID has shown us the folly of that, and on top of that we see China being a *lot* more aggressive in tone in the APAC region (to the extent that West New Zealand is going to be getting nuclear fast attack subs). Certainly if I had a China-oriented supply chain, I'd also want a strong non-China supply chain.
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