Today saw the release of the US William Morrow Deluxe Illustrated Silmarillion. This edition is essentially identical to the HarperCollins edition released last year.

(Note that my US copy was printed by Rotolito as was my UK edition from 2022).

I am in the UK. If I buy a new copy of this Silmarillion deluxe, are there still issues with the silver lettering on the spine? Thanks.

Tuor wrote:

I am in the UK. If I buy a new copy of this Silmarillion deluxe, are there still issues with the silver lettering on the spine? Thanks.

Good question. I am interested in that, too.

I haven’t bought any later UK HarperCollins deluxe Silmarillions since the first impression last year. And I didn’t want to rub the lettering on the US William Morrow I picked up yesterday.

Tuor wrote:

I am in the UK. If I buy a new copy of this Silmarillion deluxe, are there still issues with the silver lettering on the spine? Thanks.

I would assume that it would still be an issue, given the explanation passed around the most was an issue between the silver ink and the blue dyed leather and not properly binding/adhering (or something like that).

Given it's the same color ink and dyed leather, would think it is still going to be an issue.

People on Reddit have recently (within the last month) purchased some and have seen that it is still an issue.

Mod edit - Can you provide links to the information that you mention?

Link to the HC Letter that mentions a HC strategy for the bindings on these issues?

Halbarad wrote:

In a letter that HC wrote about their rationale for moving to graphicom for the new hobbit deluxe, they also revealed that their main strategy for dealing with the spine problem is to just swap it out for another book.

What letter are you referring to? It would be more helpful if you could provide context to where you are drawing these conclusions from.

Mr. Underhill wrote:

Halbarad wrote:

In a letter that HC wrote about their rationale for moving to graphicom for the new hobbit deluxe, they also revealed that their main strategy for dealing with the spine problem is to just swap it out for another book.

What letter are you referring to? It would be more helpful if you could provide context to where you are drawing these conclusions from.

Here is a link to someone who has the same issue, purchased 9 days ago on Reddit:

https://reddit.com/r/tolkienbooks/s/KjOYjnqbe3

The letter is from David Brown at Harper Collins’s posted by Uruloke at this link:

https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/n ... hp?topic_id=5242&start=20

The specific portion of the letter stating the following: “…the forthcoming deluxe edition of The Hobbit will be printed and bound by a different company from The Silmarillion, as we strive to ensure the highest standards for our books. The Silmarillion had even larger print runs than The History of The Hobbit, but on that occasion more copies had to be replaced than I consider to be reasonable…”

And to my knowledge, whether it was from my experience or the experience of others, the go to strategy for (all?) publishers is to replace the book. And HC is pretty tight lipped anyway. I mean if they ever do make a change to the Silmarillion mfg process and fix the spine issue, I’ll buy another one to replace mine.

But if they are planning to make changes to fix the issue, or have already made those changes, rather than just continue to replace books, they haven’t said a word about it, and previous bad copies are obviously still out there.

Halbarad wrote:

The specific portion of the letter stating the following: “…the forthcoming deluxe edition of The Hobbit will be printed and bound by a different company from The Silmarillion, as we strive to ensure the highest standards for our books. The Silmarillion had even larger print runs than The History of The Hobbit, but on that occasion more copies had to be replaced than I consider to be reasonable…”

And to my knowledge, whether it was from my experience or the experience of others, the go to strategy for (all?) publishers is to replace the book. And HC is pretty tight lipped anyway. I mean if they ever do make a change to the Silmarillion mfg process and fix the spine issue, I’ll buy another one to replace mine.

You are correct, book publishers will usually replace defective books, as they have to under most countries' consumer laws. I do not class this as a strategy but a part of being a book publisher.

The Reddit purchaser can send the book back for a replacement.

You state that HC are tight lipped, but we did have a statement from David Brawn talking about this issue and stating what they were doing for the Hobbit, I think they were quite open about the problem.

Thanks, everyone, for your replies to my query about the silver lettering. It sounds like it's still a problem.