Hobbits

The 1961 and 1963 have The Hill, but the 1965 does not... i can check some earlier editions, but at first glance they all have the Hill.

Will see if I have the US copies here somewhere... hopefully i find the box they are in soon.

Thanks for that. I am working on a Hobbit update for TolkienBooks.net and just wondered if my 1965 copy was misbound or if A&U had left the illustration out on purpose. I have some earlier copies but not the 1963 impresion. It looks like they only omitted it from the last impression of the Second Edition.

Beren,

Do you have any news on the HarperCollins History of The Hobbit boxed edition? David Brawn mentioned it at the online launch party I think. If I remember correctly it will include The Hobbit in a new jacket design as well. Any idea when it will be published?

I really want to read John Rateliff's books, but would prefer to buy just the set, rather than pay for the separate books now, and then the set later.

I ran across this ebay auction with clear pictures that the seventeenth impression (1967) also has the Hill illustration. Outside the range you were looking for, but seemed like it might be useful anyways.

I don't have my Bibliography or Annotated Hobbit in front of me - the 17th impression shows the 15th impression (3rd edition) was published in 1966. Which year is correct?

I have a 15th Impression 1965.
The printers made a mess when they set up the type for the printing history on the Third Edition 1966:

What should have read as:

Fifteenth Impression 1965
Third Edition (Sixteenth Impression) 1966

was actually set down as:

Third Edition (Fifteenth Impression) 1966
Sixteenth Impression 1966

This error was never corrected.

The Third Edition includes four colour plates rather than one, and remained the same up to 1974 when they reset the text and added another colour plate.