Trotter:

"How many pages in total are the text of The Lay of Aotrou & Itroun and how many are commentary?"

The Lay itself (as published in The Welsh Review) appears on pp. 3-21. The rest of the book contains a mix of commentary by Flieger and related manuscripts by Tolkien. A detailed Contents can be found as a "preview" on the Amazon page of the book.

"where was it printed and what are your views on the printing quality?"

"Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc". Printing quality is same as the other recent (standard hardcover) Tolkien titles from HarperCollins.

Ulmo:

Morgan wrote:
Trotter:

"How many pages in total are the text of The Lay of Aotrou & Itroun and how many are commentary?"

The Lay itself (as published in The Welsh Review) appears on pp. 3-21. The rest of the book contains a mix of commentary and related manuscripts by Tolkien. A detailed Contents can be found as a "preview" on the Amazon page of the book.

"where was it printed and what are your views on the printing quality?"

"Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc". Printing quality is same as the other recent (standard edition) Tolkien titles from HarperCollins.

Ulmo:

Good to hear.

Velmeran wrote:
Well other than the slipcase not having a smooth curve, do we know if there are other quality issues with Kullervo? Trotter stated it looked nice, but some would be disappointed it was printed in China.

Nothing about paper or binding quality or anything else that would immediately put it into the same quality as some others printed in China. Not everything printed over there is horrible, just like not everything printed in the UK or Italy is perfect.

I remember lots of angst over TFtPR and that was printed in the UK by Clays and 1st prints of The Silmarillion were plagued with the crease on the spine and that was done by L.E.G.O. in Italy.

I got my copy of "Deluxe" Kullervo today and it is bound upside down! Printed and bound in China. Indeed.

Any collectors of defective copies out there want to swap?

Yep, these books are junk. Here's another misbind picture for you.

You ended up buying it? Hey at least its not as bad as mine. When I opened the book and found the upside down page starting from the last one I thought I was going mad!

You know, I asked for return-and-replacement, but maybe it would be a wise move to change that and ask for a refund. I wouldn't think it twice if I didn't have all the other Deluxes 1st print (except Sigurd and Gudrun).

Morinehtar wrote:
You ended up buying it? Hey at least its not as bad as mine. When I opened the book and found the upside down page starting from the last one I thought I was going mad!

You know, I asked for return-and-replacement, but maybe it would be a wise move to change that and ask for a refund. I wouldn't think it twice if I didn't have all the other Deluxes 1st print (except Sigurd and Gudrun).

I'd just go with the refund, personally. I didn't accept my copy (and I should have gone with my initial stand not to buy it -- lesson learned).

It also had quite an acrid smell, one of the end papers was creased and it had a small scuff on the quarter binding.

Typical Chinese 'get away with the least quality possible' manufacturing (they probably provided HC with decent quality samples). Like I say, it was a reminder that there is a reason why I have made a stand against buying the Chinese editions, and in future I will stick to those principals (as I have done until this case).

I sort of wanted to see if I was being too harsh, but this has confirmed that I was not being harsh enough. This is not even close to being a £60 RRP book.

Its superfluous to keep analyzing a copy that will be returned but the book also has a misbind at the top right corner as if not enough orange binding material was used and then someone cut out a piece and glued it to cover the spot. Didn't notice any funny smells though.

On the other hand, I am happy they are printing the Lay of A&I in the UK. Hopefully both Hardcover and Deluxe prints of Beren and Luthien will be made in Italy or UK. I will not purchase another Chinese book. However, I am not sure many people care about this and to what degree.

Morinehtar wrote:
Its superfluous to keep analyzing a copy that will be returned but the book also has a misbind at the top right corner as if not enough orange binding material was used and then someone cut out a piece and glued it to cover the spot. Didn't notice any funny smells though.

On the other hand, I am happy they are printing the Lay of A&I in the UK. Hopefully both Hardcover and Deluxe prints of Beren and Luthien will be made in Italy or UK. I will not purchase another Chinese book. However, I am not sure many people care about this and to what degree.

It is crazy, just how badly put together these books are. We only have a small sample, but it is hard to imagine these are the only badly assembled copies, especially as there are lots of different problems with the books.

This is so very disheartening. I wonder if Harper Collins might read comments on such forums (these folks do comprise their target audience after all) and consider printing the second edition in UK/Italy.

I must have gotten lucky with Kullervo "deluxe". Although it is not perfect, it at least looks fine on the shelf. That binding on some looks dreadful.