Just got this in regards to my order from Book Depository of the deluxe NoME

We are terribly sorry for the delay in dispatching your remaining item; it appears that we are having some difficulties in trying to obtain stock of this from our suppliers in the usual time period due. At present we do not have an expected date for dispatch.

If you do not wish to continue with this, please reply to this message and we may be able to cancel this providing it still hasn’t been dispatched.
Kind regards,

Sandrino
Customer Advisor

I also ordered a trade from them which has been shipped. I think I shall cancel the deluxe and try ordering from Amazon...

Aelfwine I have not started with Nature beyond a brief flick through so I don't specifically know if it would fit but may I ask if you were ever offered 'The Complaint of Mîm the Dwarf' as part of the manuscripts you worked with?

And on the subject of manuscripts, if you can estimate, how much of what you were given to work with ended up being suitable for this publication and found its way into the book?

I was not offered "The Complaint of Mîm the Dwarf" for publication. Most of what I was sent made it into the book, and much of what did not was simply variant versions of texts (from which I cited any significant differences) or passages that Christopher Tolkien had already published elsewhere.

Aelfwine wrote:

I was not offered "The Complaint of Mîm the Dwarf" for publication. Most of what I was sent made it into the book, and much of what did not was simply variant versions of texts (from which I cited any significant differences) or passages that Christopher Tolkien had already published elsewhere.

Thanks Carl and congrats. Waking up yesterday morning must have been a surreal, enjoyable experience knowing you had just published a full length book 'with' J.R.R. Tolkien ?

Just got my HMH trade edition from Amazon. It's the same height as the HMH Great Tales editions but the cover isn't quite as glossy (HMH is the king of inconsistency). Regardless, I'm more interested in this one for the content than the appearance. Thank you for your service, Aelfwine! I can't wait to embark on a fresh journey to Middle-earth.

Caudimordax wrote:

Why is it prices so often drop-often significantly-soon after release? Why charge preorders more? Please ignore if this ventures into the realm of speculation.

It is simple price discrimination. They pick off people who are willing to pay more first. I only ever preorder if I see a really good price (including NZ shipping)

Aelfwine : Hi Carl, thanks for all the precious insights given during your Oxonmoot talks and of course congratulations for your new book!

Just a side note: When I asked if the essay referred to as "Elvish Time" in Tolkien Gateway (of which some extracts have been published by Verlyn Flieger in the book "A Question of Time") was covered in your book, you answered "No is the short answer...".

Now that I can compare the texts, I actually found out that it is indeed covered by your book as chapter XXI "NOTES ON ELVISH TIME-REFERENCE"...

The text given in "A Question of Time" basically covers what you name "Text 1".

I am sure someone will promptly update that Tolkien Gateway page...

Ah! Well, I think I did mention that text in my answer, eventually. I just wasn't sure to what Verlyn was referring.

Aelfwine (or someone else), could you explain to me what are the "Prime, Second, ..., Minims" used by Tolkien in the first chapters of Nature, please ? I look for these terms in anglo-french dictionaries, but I can't find a satisfactory explanation related with the subject of time.

I'm told that the first Harper Collins (UK) printing of _The Nature of Middle-earth_ (of 12,000 copies) has just about sold out, and that there will be a second printing (of 4,000 copies). For a book as niche as this, that's pretty amazing! The Houghton Mifflin first printing was much larger (3 or 4 times larger, I think), so presumably it is still readily available.