David Brawn told me that the omission of the two blank pages at the front was down to getting the plate to appear in the right place (and he is happy for the book to be discussed and information shared -- I was worried I had jumped the gun).

garm, you should ask Charles to look in here some time. I'm sure he'd appreciate the leisurely pace of posting & book pedantry...

BH

ha - well, you never know -

Stu wrote:
David Brawn told me that the omission of the two blank pages at the front was down to getting the plate to appear in the right place (and he is happy for the book to be discussed and information shared -- I was worried I had jumped the gun).

When you do a good job there is nothing to hide If anything this is very reassuring. I hope Amazon ships my copy soon.

Stu wrote:
David Brawn told me that the omission of the two blank pages at the front was down to getting the plate to appear in the right place (and he is happy for the book to be discussed and information shared -- I was worried I had jumped the gun).

It does mean that all the page numbers are wrong in the facsimile, it looks like the first page is actually page 9 and not page 11 as in the original.

I assume the plate is Mirkwood

Trotter wrote:

It does mean that all the page numbers are wrong in the facsimile, it looks like the first page is actually page 9 and not page 11 as in the original.

I assume the plate is Mirkwood

If you count the end paper with the map and count into the book, the page numbers work (you end up at 12, when the first actual page number appears on the page), so it doesn't come across as odd.

Wherever a page number is displayed (from p12 onward), it is as per the original.

I assume the plate that David was referring to was the Mirkwood plate.

Stu wrote:
If you count the end paper with the map and count into the book, the page numbers work (you end up at 12, when the first actual page number appears on the page), so it doesn't come across as odd.

Wherever a page number is displayed (from p12 onward), it is as per the original.

You can count it that way, but that means that the numbering is wrong in the 1st Impression and it actually starts on page 13, not 11.

Trotter wrote:

Stu wrote:
If you count the end paper with the map and count into the book, the page numbers work (you end up at 12, when the first actual page number appears on the page), so it doesn't come across as odd.

Wherever a page number is displayed (from p12 onward), it is as per the original.

You can count it that way, but that means that the numbering is wrong in the 1st Impression and it actually starts on page 13, not 11.

No, I'm certainly not saying it is correct per the original -- I'm just saying it doesn't come across as totally whacky in its slightly modified form. People who know the original like yourself will notice the difference, but most readers probably won't notice unless their attention is drawn to it. I'd definitely have prefered those blank sheets to have been present, of course.

I just did a comparison of a few pages against the original, and there are some minor differences, e.g. the illustration on p196 is closer to the top of the page in the original, I noticed an 'O' at the start of one of the page headers, which appears to be a little higher than on the corresponding page in the original and is misaligned with the rest of the line (will need to look again at which page that was). The Mirkwood illustration looked to be positioned in the same way as original, and overall nothing stood out on the pages where I had photos of the original to compare to.

Paper quality is nothing to write home about, but does not look out of place (obviously you will be able to comment on how it compares to the original -- I suspect the original will be somewhat better).

I'm sure we will end up with a big list of requests for a second print, should there be one :)

ah - is the Mirkwood illustration a half-tone plate?

garm wrote:
ah - is the Mirkwood illustration a half-tone plate?

It is.