northman wrote:

2022 off to a good start

Is that Ringenes Herre Danish or Bokmål?

Those are amazing Taivo. I agree 100%.

Taivo wrote:

Just got this 1981 set of Maria Skibniewska's Polish translation, Władca Pierścieni. The back covers are just as stark and foreboding. In 1981, the Poles were under occupation by the Soviet Union, a Pole had just ascended to the Throne of Saint Peter in the Vatican, and a radical anti-communist labor leader was raising hell in Gdańsk. The Polish world was in the middle of a radical change and the starkness of these illustrations by Jerzy Czerniawski certainly reflects the mood of the time. I don't know that I've ever seen a better example of LOTR covers that speak to the mood of the real world in which they were published.

Coincidentally, yesterday, I did my annual lecture to my students on the '81 Solidarity movement and martial law crackdown in Poland under Jaruzelski, as part of the Cold War unit of my 20th century history class.

I'll have to find a way to incorporate these into my lecture notes next year.

Taivo:
that one is 'bokmål'.

Those Maria Skibniewska backcovers are amazing!

Taivo wrote:

Just got this 1981 set of Maria Skibniewska's Polish translation, Władca Pierścieni. The back covers are just as stark and foreboding. In 1981, the Poles were under occupation by the Soviet Union, a Pole had just ascended to the Throne of Saint Peter in the Vatican, and a radical anti-communist labor leader was raising hell in Gdańsk. The Polish world was in the middle of a radical change and the starkness of these illustrations by Jerzy Czerniawski certainly reflects the mood of the time. I don't know that I've ever seen a better example of LOTR covers that speak to the mood of the real world in which they were published.

Got my hands on these as well Taivo.... these are really fascinating.

Pretty excited about my Linguaphone set that came in today. The set is complete with 5 booklets (french editions) including two that mention J.R.R. Tolkien and as a nice little detail a handsigned slip by the quality controller Pittman. The records seem unplayed. Both sleeves and booklets are in VG condition (except for one sleeve that has a rip at the cutout hole, but that is not one of the sleeves for nr 20 and 30, those are VG). The only degrading factor is the case. The locks on the case are rusty and the topflap has a fragile connection with the rest of the case. I got this for 45 euros, so I'm very happy with this set. Any way of dating it?

Linguaphone Conversational Course is an English language course originally released in 1930 as a set of 78 rpm records by the Linguaphone Institute of London. J.R.R. Tolkien read parts of Lesson 20 "At the Tobacconist's" and Lesson 30 "Wireless", which is the earliest known recording of his voice. Tolkien made the recording in July 1929.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Linguaphone_Conversational_Course

At The Tobacconist's https://sounds.bl.uk/Arts-literature-a ... 24M-1CS0011556XX-0200V0#_

Wireless https://sounds.bl.uk/Arts-literature-a ... /024M-1CS0011570XX-0200V0

Are all the Tolkien Linguaphone sets from 1930 or did they repress it at any later date? I'm aware of sets without Tolkiens contribution.

I have 9 complete sets (6 Italians, 2 English, 1 Dutch). Linguaphone with Tolkien's voice were produced from the early 1930s through the end of the 1940s. To understand the dating, approximately, you have to look how many languages they are on the cover of the record. The fewer languages there are, the older it is. A few years ago I wrote the article "J. R. R. Tolkien, il Linguaphone e l’Italia 1930 - 1950" with a lot of information. You can read it with google translate if you don’t read Italian.

Article on Academia
https://www.academia.edu/17312360/J.R. ... ne_e_l_Italia_1930_-_1950

My blog (with pictures and links).
https://tolkieniano.blogspot.com/2015/ ... uaphone-inglese-1930.html

(In the photographs there are no two Italian sets)

Just arrived today is the Grigor'eva-Grushetskij Russian translation of LOTR in a 1993 two-volume edition including the amazing art of S.B. Yukhimov. (See the full set of LOTR illustrations at S.B. Yukhimov LOTR illustrations). Books 1-3 are in Volume 1 and 4-6 (plus Appendices) in Volume 2. I found this on a Russian second-hand site, but my wife (a Ukrainian native speaker of Russian) had to negotiate with the seller for payment (Western Union) and shipping to the US. Shipping to the US might not be possible from Russia in the coming weeks so I'm glad my timing was good.