Unbound Silmarillion sheets

The text of the inked and pencilled notes is (though what I transcribe as 'RRR' may not be correct):

Houghton Mifflin
file copy

FIRST EDITION (sheets) LWC/RRR 12-79
last leaf roughly opened —

Though the verso of the title page states “printed”
(as is the dummy) these sheets are actually
photo offest (as is the book) the book however
states this —

oxonianus wrote:

The text of the inked and pencilled notes is (though what I transcribe as 'RRR' may not be correct):

Houghton Mifflin
file copy

FIRST EDITION (sheets) LWC/RRR 12-79
last leaf roughly opened —

Though the verso of the title page states “printed”
(as is the dummy) these sheets are actually
photo offest (as is the book) the book however
states this —

ah yes LWC/RRR is probably right....i was thinking LWC/RRE. No idea what either one means though.

oxonianus wrote:

The text of the inked and pencilled notes is (though what I transcribe as 'RRR' may not be correct):

Houghton Mifflin
file copy

FIRST EDITION (sheets) LWC/RRR 12-79
last leaf roughly opened —

Though the verso of the title page states “printed”
(as is the dummy) these sheets are actually
photo offest (as is the book) the book however
states this —

Thanks for this oxonianus I started to work on it but you were faster. northman I would say this is in fact an unbound (perhaps) publishers dummy, although the "Houghton Mifflin File Copy" being written in another hand is a puzzling red flag. Are all the pages present?

My guess would be that those are the initials of some persons, or perhaps person and firm, involved in the transmission in December 1979 of the sheets to whomever is making the notes.

While the inked 'Houghton Mifflin' with the pencilled 'file copy' indicates they were at some time some sort of file copy at Houghton Mifflin, these notes sound more like a bookseller's or collector's comments. Houghton Mifflin wouldn't need such notes; they would know very well whether their copies from GA&U were printed or photo offset, and would not be taken aback by results of the latter process being termed 'printed'.

Mr. Underhill wrote:

oxonianus wrote:

The text of the inked and pencilled notes is (though what I transcribe as 'RRR' may not be correct):

Houghton Mifflin
file copy

FIRST EDITION (sheets) LWC/RRR 12-79
last leaf roughly opened —

Though the verso of the title page states “printed”
(as is the dummy) these sheets are actually
photo offest (as is the book) the book however
states this —

Thanks for this oxonianus I started to work on it but you were faster. northman I would say this is in fact an unbound (perhaps) publishers dummy, although the "Houghton Mifflin File Copy" being written in another hand is a puzzling red flag. Are all the pages present?

All the pages look present, will check more carefully tonight.

Yes all pages present. A couple more pictures.

A bit of an update on the silmarillion sheets,
Khamul suspected the initials LWC in the 'LWC/RRR(RRE?)' inscription might be the bookseller/collector/author L.W. Currey. I sent Currey an email with some pictures and he said he had co-owned these sheets with another bookseller and that it was this seller that had aquired the sheets, he didnt know anything more about them.

The text in the sheets seems to be the first state clowes text. The only thing i have found to be missing is the large map. The smaller map of beleriand and its realms are there as a single-page inlay.

I have sent inquiries to Easton Press and Gyldendal and Aschehoug about how a book would be sent overseas for printing but all the answer i have gotten was that sheets would be sent, but they didnt know how such sheets would look. Of course the coolest possibility is that this is one of the sets of 'master copies' sent from GAU to Houghton Mifflin to be photographed for the offset lithography. More realistically this is some kind of filecopy i guess. My next step is to send some pictures to Merlyn Unwin books. Dont know if they can add any knowledge. Also Khamul says he might have some more things I could check with the text, I will get back here about that if anything new can be gleamed.

Very interesting story northman, wondering if M. Unwin could add to the story ! Hope so.

So Merlin Unwin was kind enough to answer my enquiry about the sheets. He informed me that he didnt start working at George Allen and Unwin until a couple of years after the publishing of the silmarillion so unfortunately he had not seen these exact sheets, but he did know that such signatures were sent from GAU to the american publisher before printings of the US edition.

Then Uruloke mentioned that some publishing veterans participated in the 'BBC mock up thread' on Brian Sibleys FB. I sent them photographs of the sheets and one of them, David John Fielder, could inform me that these sheets were indeed the real thing and was a copy of the first Silmarillion printing sent to the american publisher to prepare their printing. Fielder used the phrase 'pretty rare' defending the upcoming cost of having @Duneidan making a nice clamshell for them :)

Thank you to Khamul and Uruloke for helping me sort out a bit about the mystery of these sheets. I feel very lucky now that I picked them up.