I believe I may just return this to Amazon and order the more expensive UK/HarperCollins trade edition from Blackwell's.

Thank you all for this great information. I appreciate it.

tercio wrote:

I believe I may just return this to Amazon and order the more expensive UK/HarperCollins trade edition from Blackwell's.

Thank you all for this great information. I appreciate it.

Sensible decision. A return to Amazon is going to be a *lot* easier than getting the publisher involved. That said, flicking an FYI email to HarperCollins at [email protected] seems like a good idea. It would be good for them to get a real grasp of the extent of the problems with this edition, so hopefully it doesn't happen again.

I’m sure this has been asked before (I believe on the deluxe edition)

But why does this day reprint?

Falkor wrote:

I’m sure this has been asked before (I believe on the deluxe edition)

But why does this day reprint?

For no appreciably good reason. You can ignore it.

Stu wrote:

Falkor wrote:

I’m sure this has been asked before (I believe on the deluxe edition)

But why does this day reprint?

For no appreciably good reason. You can ignore it.

Blackwell's has stated that the "reprint" just mean this is a new edition of the book, and not a new book (go figure). It does not indicate whether it is a first printing or later printing of this edition. I and many others have received our copies from Blackwells and they are all first printings.

I have my replacement copy coming from Blackwells now (just shipped today) - once it arrives I will let everyone know what impression it is, but I fully expect everything is still first impressions. There hasn't been time for HC to request a second impression and for the printer to work on it and then ship it to the UK - that will take months.

I bought the non-deluxe hardback and am just handling it for the first time now. No box, just shrink-wrapped, although I take it the box is a UK thing (I'm in the US).

I also see that the "red" page edges are more of a tomato soup color, which is to say, like pink but without the fun (drab). I know many dreaded the electric red of the initial renders, but a true red that was more understated would've been nice (and preferable to room temperature soup). Still, more recent photos online showed this, so I wasn't really surprised.

The real eye-catcher, however, is the dust jacket, which I'd been led to believe would be white, but is actually the gray of recycled cigarette butts. Was anyone else surprised by the dust jacket color? This ain't white.

I was going to peel off the shrink wrap and see how everything looked for real, but...none of that is going to change. I definitely wouldn't have ordered this if I didn't think it would be beautiful (that white! that gold!), and...nope, this is not what it appeared to be in any online photos I saw. I think I'm sending this ugly thing back to Amazon.

The book shown here: https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/n ... t_id=34029#forumpost34029
...looks like a completely different item from what I have. Is this just a UK/US thing, where I'm wrongly considering what are essentially two different products to be the same thing? Or did this person photoshop the hell out of those photos to liven up the soup and cigarettes?

St. Troy wrote:

The book shown here: https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/n ... t_id=34029#forumpost34029
...looks like a completely different item from what I have. Is this just a UK/US thing, where I'm wrongly considering what are essentially two different products to be the same thing? Or did this person photoshop the hell out of those photos to liven up the soup and cigarettes?

Photoshop filters for the win. I actually don't mind the more understated red and grey. That said, the grey isn't the same as the off-white of the original first editions, which I think they might have been going for.

Increasing number of reports of copies with problems like this one (look through all the pictures -- this one is a bit of a horror)

https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienbooks/ ... 180_red_slipcase_edition/

Meant to post earlier, this is borrowed w/ permission from buyer who posted on FB that their deluxe copy had many blank pages like this one, mostly in the 700's range.

The QC issues persist.

Has HC issued some kind of public apologetic statement?