Well this collector wont be getting this edition. The recent silmarillion deluxe which cant be read without ruining the print on the spine was the final straw.

I'm puzzled by the size of this enormous doorstop. The original two-volume set was on thicker paper—neither great nor terrible quality, but quite good—and the two volumes side-by-side appear to be less in width than the new single volume. The additions in the new single volume are only around 50 pages or so, as I recall from seeing the table of contents, yet on thinner paper, so the book should, one would think, be substantially thinner than the two volumes, four boards and all. Jackets and boards and all of the two volume edition are 7cm / 2.75 in wide. The Amazon.co.uk lists the de luxe edition width as 8.2 cm / ~3.25 in (perhaps that includes the slipcase?). That's wider than expected for thinner paper being employed, even with the additional pages. I suspect the lower quality paper, though thinner, doesn't actually 'seal up', that is, the pages don't lie as closely together when the book is closed as higher quality paper tends to do, making it a book of half air, so to speak.

For anyone familiar with the two-volume edition and the material added to the one-volume edition, would you say the additional material is really worth obtaining the new edition? Or is it only semi-relevant stuff? I haven't seen this discussed otherwise.

Here's John's tally of what is in the second edition. There were 32 pages of additional material that Christopher found too late for inclusion in the first edition plus errata and other small tweaks.

http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/11/ ... obbit-second-edition.html

I'm not sure why you think the single volume is on thinner paper. I pulled out my (HMH) two volume edition, and 100 pages are 5.3 mm thick. The new single volume (HC) has 100 pages at 6.04 mm thick. I chose the same run of 100 pages in both editions that do not have any plates in them, so this is just measuring the text paper thickness.

(What's the point of owning a digital caliper if you don't use it occasionally?)

Ha! Enjoy the caliper!

Yes, I don't have the doorstop edition, so the 'thinner paper' comment is based on what others have said; likely they didn't have the older edition for comparison.

In any case, thank you! That addresses my initial puzzlement. The new one is certainly thicker.

Now comes the second puzzlement: why on earth publish it in such a way? The two volumes are perfectly manageable for reading and reference, and take less space on a shelf. The single volume fails on both counts. An updated edition in two volumes would have been a better choice.

And yes, I'd read through Rateliff's description of the additional material. I suppose an e-book to obtain the new material would suffice. Other than a weak latent compulsion toward completism, I don't feel a particular interest in having it. I don't imagine ever needing to cite the page numbers for that stuff.

I still feel they should have created a book along the lines of Hammond and Scull's LOTR Reader's Companion. This has approximately the same number of pages (894 vs 938) but is on far superior paper, somewhere between 'normal' paper and bible paper.

I like the paper on the old 50's/60's Unwins the best along with the smell, reminds me of old libraries

Checked my copy, I don't have the issues in the video, maybe I'm exceptionally lucky?

Amon Rudh, I agree. It's twice the width of a book with only 46 fewer pages. Astonishing.

oxonianus wrote:

And yes, I'd read through Rateliff's description of the additional material. I suppose an e-book to obtain the new material would suffice.

HotH ebook has many typos in the additional appendix on Tengwar. I made a list https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/o0krwz/

I sigh. Thank you for sharing that very helpful set of corrections, which I'll save. I have to say, that was the most intriguing to me of the additions over the two-volume edition. As they're that messed up, though, I think I'll take a pass.

billhinge wrote:

Checked my copy, I don't have the issues in the video, maybe I'm exceptionally lucky?

I'd imagine issues like those in the video are the exception, not the norm when it comes to this release.

I haven't received my Deluxe copy yet but my standard/trade edition doesn't have any printing issues. Well, outside of maybe preferring better paper or boards but I'd say those were more poor choices to reduce overall production costs to hit profit margins; as opposed to actual production quality issues like in that video, or some of the copies where ink is smeared, or covering 1/3 of a page, etc.

Most people don't take the time to go online and post in their community of choice that the new book they purchased showed up defect free, as that's the expectation. So while there definitely are more production QC issues recently with Rotolito handling the printing duties, I personally think the issues aren't nearly as widespread as the internet would have us believe.