I for one would buy one copy — one — even if I didn't have an essay in it, because I am both a Tolkien enthusiast/collector and an admirer of finely-produced books. (And no, I get no royalties on this, so this isn't a self-serving opinion.) There are many such finely-crafted books I would love to own, but can't usually justify; but for a volume like this of such significance to Tolkien studies and appreciation, I'm definitely a member of what I take to be the target audience. (YMMV, of course.)

—— Carl

Khamûl wrote:
Stu, the original price was £275; or at least, as Urulöké alludes to, that's the we would like to offer you the opportunity to re-order at the lower price as a gesture of goodwill-price I've been offered as someone who cancelled their original order. And postage looks like £20, so works out as £295 to your door anyway.

Not convinced.

BH

Yeah, my bad on the £265 vs £275. Like you say, postage is £20 (£40 overseas).

I actually think they will probably sell, just because there are enough money-no-object people that will attend the two exhibitions and purchase one. The limitation (700 in total) is high enough that I think these will not be hard to find used later on, so I'm not feeling any FOMO here.

Edit: it doesn't help that we are quite in the dark as to the detail of the content. a £40 punt is a lot more palatable that a £300 punt, I guess.

Well if they didn’t make it a limited edition they wouldn’t have to charge this much, and at a lower price point methinks they could sell a lot more copies and raise much more funds for their conservation efforts.

They could have had a limited number of signed copies at this price if they wanted to for those who care about signed stuff, and a lower priced unsigned version for middle-of-the-road collectors who can’t afford to spend half a month’s rent on a book :)

Or just make one copy for £20,000. I'm sure someone would have bought it.

BH

Eorl, there is a trade edition (paperback and hardcover) available if you are not interested in the collector's (signed) edition.

Paperback, £25 https://www.bodleianshop.co.uk/tolkien ... of-middle-earth-2065.html

Hardback, £40 https://www.bodleianshop.co.uk/tolkien-maker-of-middle-earth.html

Signed limited edition (700 copy limitation of which 675 are for sale to the public), £295 https://www.bodleianshop.co.uk/collectors-edition.html

The hardback is currently listed at £26 on Amazon UK

Good catch Glorfindel. Here are pre-order links for those so inclined.

Thanks Jeremy! I was aware of these variations. I was just wishing there was a more affordable option for getting the cloth bound one. Thanks for the links though :)

Ta. Pre-ordered. At a tenth of the price of the collectors edition, I think I will be happy with this one!

If you are interested in the collector's edition, this just in from the Bodleian twitter feed:

The Collector's Edition of Tolkien: The Maker of Middle-earth is selling fast! In less than one week after it was announced, 10% of the print run was sold!