Mr. Underhill wrote:

The William Morrow Deluxe slipcased Hobbit was released in the U.S. this week.

Here is my ARC, same in everyway as the HarperCollins volume, with title pages swapped out and logos changed. A very handsome volume.

Looks beautiful. The silver details also seems to be in great shape?

EmilK wrote:

Mr. Underhill wrote:

The William Morrow Deluxe slipcased Hobbit was released in the U.S. this week.

Here is my ARC, same in everyway as the HarperCollins volume, with title pages swapped out and logos changed. A very handsome volume.

Looks beautiful. The silver details also seems to be in great shape?

Yes, silver stamping on the "leather" spine couldn't be better.

Mr. Underhill wrote:

EmilK wrote:

Mr. Underhill wrote:

The William Morrow Deluxe slipcased Hobbit was released in the U.S. this week.

Here is my ARC, same in everyway as the HarperCollins volume, with title pages swapped out and logos changed. A very handsome volume.

Looks beautiful. The silver details also seems to be in great shape?

Yes, silver stamping on the "leather" spine couldn't be better.

The long-term durability of that blue totally-not-leather "leather" is my big question about these 2024-2025 deluxe editions. If they survive reading and shelf-time without cracking or other issues, this will be a nice product that holds its value!

Overall, I think these editions suffered (in terms of sales) from following the series of deluxe author-illustrated versions. At the same time, I also think HC learned some lessons and these editions may benefit from those lessons. In other words, they strike me as good quality! My 2024 LOTR books have been enjoyable to read, and I like having the new Alan Lee illustrations.

However, I haven't bought this Hobbit yet. I'll wait for the price to drop, even if it ends up being a second printing.

Mine came through from Kenny's. Despite actually being well enough wrapped, it did get a bump to the bottom of the slipcase/spine through the outer packaging and the HC box. I peeled back a bit of the slipcase cloth and injected some glue into the board to stiffen it, and the book's spine crease is pretty minor - not worth the effort and waste of a replacement in this case.

Seems like a decent enough edition. Too much stuff (maps, art cards) crammed in, though. I wish they would just stop doing that - I just stuffed it all in the box as it is just tat that falls out of the book if you actually use it.

I bought this new Hobbit from Awesomebooks.com, and it has arrived with a manufacturing defect that is a first for me. The ribbon marker has a roughly frayed spot that is held together with a beige tape that has a similar feel to masking tape. It made me wonder at the circumstances. The beginning or end of the roll of ribbon, and this tape is what held it in place before the spool was started/finished? Does anyone know if these types of ribbon markers machine-inserted or done by hand?

In automotive, cloth rolls have defects marked as such. Machinery is programmed to look for the tape and cut that section off. Might be the same, and just missed.

The books are entirely machine-made, and would have been missed in the Quality Control inspections that they don't do.

For those who feel that the slipcase is a very tight fit when taking the book out, does it make a difference if you adjust the position of the added maps and photo (both at the front and back of the book) away from the spine?

EmilK wrote:

For those who feel that the slipcase is a very tight fit when taking the book out, does it make a difference if you adjust the position of the added maps and photo (both at the front and back of the book) away from the spine?

I just took them out and filed them away. I’ll never look at them anyway (but I will look at the book occasionally), and they just put stress on the binding. Books aren’t designed to have tat shoved between the endpaper and boards.

The late Stu wrote:

EmilK wrote:

For those who feel that the slipcase is a very tight fit when taking the book out, does it make a difference if you adjust the position of the added maps and photo (both at the front and back of the book) away from the spine?

I just took them out and filed them away. I’ll never look at them anyway (but I will look at the book occasionally), and they just put stress on the binding. Books aren’t designed to have tat shoved between the endpaper and boards.

Further to Stu's point, I take mine out and have them in a folder (mentioned in our unboxing video).

Books should not have extras loosely inserted at the ends and to the books credit, without them it is a good fit in the slip. Plus generally if I want to consult a map from a work while reading The History of Middle-earth for instance, I don't want to be getting other books down off the shelf to consult these larger fold-out maps. Having them all neatly collected together in an A5 snap-close folder makes a lot of sense for me.