We have pleasure in sending the accompanying book for review...

I had a copy of the US Silmarillion with review slip (it has since found another home, but I kept a photocopy of the review letter for research purposes.)

I have also seen a lot of review copies for the US HOME series. There are also a couple of first edition LOTR review copies floating around (in the Marquette collection, etc.) that are essentially galleys. I don't recall seeing a copy of the review letter with them, but I will go back and check what I have tucked away. I haven't seen anything for the Hobbit.

I have a copy of Carpenter's Biography with a GA&U review slip. They were a standard A&U publishing tool - Sir Stanley Unwin describes them in his book, The Truth About Publishing.

Thanks for that guys.

How pre-publication do you reckon review copies are? A couple of weeks? (falling between dummy copies & publication copies).

BH

Hi Khamul,

In reply to your first post. I don't think I have review copies from any of the earlier editions, but have a few from more recent publications (all with review slips):

1992 Tolkien Family Album
1998 Silmarillion, illustrated by Ted Namsmith
2002 History of Middle Earth - 3 Vols Large Print
2007 Hobbit 50th Anniversary
2007 Children of Hurin (US Edition).

And of lesser interest, review copies of various books of Tolkien Criticism.

In reply to your second question, I always assumed (though am not absolutely 100% certain) that review copies were just part of the First Print Run and as such no different from a regular first print and just sent out for review prior to the actual publication date.

Remy.

I dug up my notes on the US Silmarillion.

The book and letter were sent out August 10, 1977. The book appeared to be identical to the trade 1st edition in all regards, but I don't have it in hand to verify 100% any more. Given the size of the print run, there is essentially no chance whatsoever that they were still making changes to the text at this late date.

For the review copies (Advance Reading Copies or ARCs for short) that I have seen for the HOME series, they are mostly non-finished text bound in simple paper wrappers - clearly sent out much further in advance than the Silmarillion copy I saw. I did have a review copy of The Book of Lost Tales Part I that was just one of the trade 1st edition copies (printed in Great Britain) with an ink stamp on the top of the page block that said "not for resale".

Douglas Anderson in The Annotated Hobbit (p. 15 Revised and Expanded edition, 2002) states that the book was printed in June, but withheld from release until the fall in order to let review copies be sent out and to target the Christmas market.

For the review copies (Advance Reading Copies or ARCs for short) that I have seen for the HOME series, they are mostly non-finished text bound in simple paper wrappers - clearly sent out much further in advance than the Silmarillion copy I saw.

Hi Rowns,

I presume technically speaking, that these would really be Uncorrected Proof Copies as opposed to Review Copies.

I do not know the strict definitions, and although a 'Proof' copy may be sent out for review, I would consider a 'Review' copy to be identical to the regular trade edition, whereas a 'Proof' copy may be bound differently and have many textual differences - and be an earlier state of the edition?

But I would think it important to distinguish between a 'Review' and 'Proof' Copy.

Have I got this right or are there circumstances whereby an ARC would have textual differences to the First Trade Printing?

Remy.

I've seen all sorts of "review copies" out of HarperCollins and Houghton Mifflin over the years. In my mind an Advance Reading Copy (ARC) is the first edition gatherings perfect bound (glued into paper wraps) rather than case-bound into the hardcover form. In modern terms (the digital age), there is no difficulty in changing the text in the few weeks or perhaps months between when the ARC is sent out for comment and when the first edition is printed, so it is not unusual to have changes between the two. It used to be (back in the day of setting type in blocks for printing) that there was no difference at all between the review copy and the first edition, as there was not time to reset anything between the two.

The above is just my opinion, though. There is no hard-and-fast definition for ARC. It can mean either a proof or galley copy sent out for comment, or a first edition sent out early to allow the book to be read and reviewed by the time the book becomes publicly available. I have seen ARCs that specifically state on the wraps that they are not the final text to be published.

ABC for Book Collectors by John Carter and Nicolas Barker, now in 8th edition, is an excellent resource for terminology such as this. It says for Advance Copy: "...are normally either final proofs or the first sheets to be gathered of the main run...." So it doesn't call one out as preferred over the other either.

It does say that a Review Copy is usually a first edition copy with a slip laid in or some other marking on it (no mention of proof's being sent as a Review Copy.)

It also says for Proofs that "Whereas the bibliographical distinction between wrappered final proofs and Advance Copies is significant, the physical differences are often slight, or non-existent."

ABC is a great reference (and even a great read, as there are a lot of tongue-in-cheek references or in-jokes scattered throughout), and significant portions of the book are self-referential - for example, the Paste-Down Endpaper is labeled as such, so you know exactly what one is.

My wife's grandmother was a book reviewer. We have her review copies of LotR. As far as I can tell, these are identical to the normal first edition / first impression (although I have never done a detailed, point-by-point comparison).

Good stuff...

I'm not suggesting the review copy I have is any different from any other Billing copies of The Silmarillion; it is identical as far as I can see. But it is a Billing copy, and I was just curious (if it were possible to determine) how pre-publication it was. Likewise if dates could be put on the Clowes dummy copies it could help build a clearer picture of printing priority between different printers i.e. the old Clowes were in production first as they had to be shipped abroad chestnut.

Rowns, a US HoME copy of Lays just went on eBay for about £30; it was some sort of uncorrected proof copy (as you mention)...

Remy, can I get that 1998 Silmarillion 'Review' copy of you have?


BH