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Silmarillion 1st edition Assumed 1st printing advice
24 Jan, 2019
2019-1-24 8:49:27 PM UTC
2019-1-24 8:49:27 PM UTC
So first off I just wanted to say hello to everyone! I just recently (maybe a month ago) started collecting Tolkien books so I started with the relatively cheap Silmarillion to begin my collection and so far I have 3 versions of it (1st edition/Printing of the Export, 1st edition/1st printing of the American edition, and the 1st edition/ 1st printing assumed domestic edition).
Now for my question(s):
In the export edition i know to look for the Clowes and Sons printer, along with the missing full stop after Feanor and the italicized "and" in Ulmo's description (page 330 and 352 respectively). I have used "tolkienbooks.net" for most of my research and am in the process of buying The Descriptive Bibliography by Hammond in order to better understand what to look for, but have been unable to find an exact answer to the following question. Are there any "errors" that i should look for in the domestic 1st edition to be able to tell if it is a 1st printing or not? It has the price marking on the dj as 4.95 pound, as well as being printed in 1977 by Billing with no other mention of later printings. However, i checked out of curiousity to see if the errors that were in the Export were also present in the Domestic and they were not, in my copy anyway. I understand they were printed by two different printers so i'm not sure what i expected but i am just curious. Thanks for any and all help!
I will also attach pictures as soon as i get home, in case that helps at all.
-James
Now for my question(s):
In the export edition i know to look for the Clowes and Sons printer, along with the missing full stop after Feanor and the italicized "and" in Ulmo's description (page 330 and 352 respectively). I have used "tolkienbooks.net" for most of my research and am in the process of buying The Descriptive Bibliography by Hammond in order to better understand what to look for, but have been unable to find an exact answer to the following question. Are there any "errors" that i should look for in the domestic 1st edition to be able to tell if it is a 1st printing or not? It has the price marking on the dj as 4.95 pound, as well as being printed in 1977 by Billing with no other mention of later printings. However, i checked out of curiousity to see if the errors that were in the Export were also present in the Domestic and they were not, in my copy anyway. I understand they were printed by two different printers so i'm not sure what i expected but i am just curious. Thanks for any and all help!
I will also attach pictures as soon as i get home, in case that helps at all.
-James
There are some domestic firsts with those errors and others without; there are plenty of variations.
Khamûl has a brilliant essay detailing every single variant in existence. You just need to pm him incessantly and he will send it to you.
Khamûl has a brilliant essay detailing every single variant in existence. You just need to pm him incessantly and he will send it to you.
Essay? Is that what one of my emails reads like, Berelach?! ;)
But to answer the question: you're looking for the same errors. Sounds like you've got yourself a Billing second state there. Deagol (of TolkienBooks.net) didn't tell you about that one, did he now?!
But to answer the question: you're looking for the same errors. Sounds like you've got yourself a Billing second state there. Deagol (of TolkienBooks.net) didn't tell you about that one, did he now?!
Very cool! I didn't know there was a Billing second impression! I thought Billings was considered the "second impression" after the Export then went back again to Clowes and Sons for the Domestic 2nd. Sadly no, Tolkienbooks.net has plenty of great info but none of the textual inconsistencies! I thought to myself, "well I can't expect them to do all the work for me can I?" ... 6 hours of googling later I was posting on here as well as purchasing The Descriptive Bibliography by Hammond 
As a moderator on the site, I'd like to ask about your statement that you spent 6 hours of googling before finding this site, could you PM Urulöké with what you searched for, that did not bring up this site, which will help people like yourself find this site in future
Haha of course! What I meant to say was that I didn't find an answer to my specific question! I was well aware of your wonderful site beforehand but even after joining I couldn't find an answer that didn't lead me back to Tolkienbooks.net or to Hammond's bibliography.
"The Silmarillion identification, identifying The Silmarillion editions, collecting the Silmarillion" are a few different searches I used!
I found plenty on Tolkien other books, but I suppose that The Silmarillion is less popular as a collective piece then his other works!
Thanks for all the help everyone! Hopefully soon I will know more of what I am talking about and will be able to help other people
"The Silmarillion identification, identifying The Silmarillion editions, collecting the Silmarillion" are a few different searches I used!
I found plenty on Tolkien other books, but I suppose that The Silmarillion is less popular as a collective piece then his other works!
Thanks for all the help everyone! Hopefully soon I will know more of what I am talking about and will be able to help other people
If Khamul would like to give us some details of all these mysterious extra states and variants, maybe I will be able to add them to TolkienBooks.
JLangh wrote:
Very cool! I didn't know there was a Billing second impression! I thought Billings was considered the "second impression" after the Export then went back again to Clowes and Sons for the Domestic 2nd. Sadly no, Tolkienbooks.net has plenty of great info but none of the textual inconsistencies! I thought to myself, "well I can't expect them to do all the work for me can I?" ... 6 hours of googling later I was posting on here as well as purchasing The Descriptive Bibliography by Hammond
You want to be using the word "state", not "impression". Both Clowes and Billings have multiple states of the first impression, but these states are all first impressions. There are, of course, also later impressions.
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