Thank you!


Does it have sewn binding?
Does it have ribbon markers?

Trotter wrote:

Eye_of_the_Black_Tower wrote:

Looks pretty sharp! What’s the new artwork in each book (as per the boxed set’s product description) like?

May take a while to produce this.

As an example, the page numbering for Fall of Gondolin has been redone, and it now also includes a list of illustrations as well as plates.

The main new artwork is the box art, which is Túrin and the Dragon © 2025 Alan Lee

That illustration is featured in the new calendar :)

Can someone tell me if there are any additional art other than the one mentioned above or is all the visual content the same?

There should be, unless we can call HC out on false advertising:

“Set #6 presents hardback editions of the three 'Great Tales' of Middle-earth, printed in full colour and with new art in each” (from the product description)

These are the 3 new frontispieces

Tall Hobbit wrote:

These are the 3 new frontispieces

They all feature in the calendar too :)

As a new collector without any copies of CoH, B&L, and FoG, I'm a little tempted just to buy the similar 2018 boxed set. It looks like the main place for this set is to fit size-wise with the previous 5 sets? Plus maybe a much better box and a few new illustrations.

The Amazon page for the new WM boxset says height is 11 inches. Is that right or an error? (The original 2018 Great Tales boxset was 8.8 inches, I think.)

I'm interested in reports about first impressions (of the first impression...) as copies start reaching members!

^
Don’t. The box is ugly and the books are the ‘old’ Houghton Mifflin heights. Unless you’re after the initial copies, the new set is superior in every way.

Of course: if that doesn’t matter, I believe the older set is still 1/2 off on Amazon US.

To sum up, the new set looks superior in every possible way, but that’s not to say that the old set is ‘terrible’ on its own merits.

I would personally recommend seeking out early/first prints of the HarperCollins hardbacks. These have plates printed to a high standard on appropriate paper (different than the text pages). You are always going to get better image reproduction that way. Obviously you miss out on the new frontispieces. I haven't really been happy with any of the image printing that has been done where the entire text block is inkjet printed into the same type of paper, with fake paper colour added to the text pages. Just doesn't work for my eyes at all.

(Note I am assuming this is the way the new books are printed as I don't have them -- but everything else has been done that way for the last few years)

Someone posted pictures of the binding on reddit. It's both glued and sewn so superior to the books from the other 5 sets. This is closer to the 2020 LOTR/Hobbit in terms of quality. The only reason not to make this set your preferred version of the books is potentially better image reproduction on the earlier sets, as Stu said. I guess you have to just weight it all up. The 1998 Silmarillion contains better quality images but far less of them.