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Tolkien Book Releases For 2000

Our publishing activities in 1999 and 2000 look like this as the moment:

June 1999: LotR one-volume trade paperback (0395974682) $20

This is the first US appearance of a one-volume paperback (its the only core edition we had never published here). Alan Lee image on the cover (pelennor fields). This book is already in its third printing, and includes the "definitive text setting" as well as the redrawn maps by Stephen Raw.

September 1999: LotR and Hobbit paperback boxed set (018002251) $45

This is a reissue set of Fellowship (0618002227), 2Towers (0618002235), Return (0618002243) and the Hobbit (0618002219) with much improved covers (to my eye). Each individual book is available separately under those ISBNs for $12 each, so the set is actually a "bargain". The text for them was photographically reproduced from the definitive 1995 UK settings, and so in fact is an improvement over the previously available paperback set from us.

October 1999: LotR Millennium Edition (0618037667) $70

As told in letter #136 of Letters of JRRT, there was briefly a plan afoot in 1953 to release LotR as six books rather than three (or one), plus the appendices. This edition fulfills that desire under the titles originally proposed by JRRT. The US edition does NOT include the CD of JRRT reading excerpts because we couldn`t get permission from HarperCollins US who actually controls the audio rights in this country.

November 1999: Poems from the Hobbit mini-book (0618009345) $5.95

A modest book along the lines of last year`s Father Christmas mini-book

November 1999: Farmer Giles of Ham (0618009361) $17

This edition includes new material never published before in addition to a facsimile of the original edition.

November 1999: Letters From Father Christmas (061800937X) $20

This is a truly impressive all new expansion and revision of the classic "Father Christmas Letters" which was first published in 1977. Its now 160 pages long, exceptionally readable, and wonderfully designed in color throughout. There is some new material never before published, and all the art has been re-photographed from the originals at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Christopher Tolkien`s wife, Bailie had a heavy hand in the design and production of this book and it looks wonderful. I`ve just gotten my hands on the first copies off press, but sadly, it won`t begin shipping to stores in the US until the end of November (20,000 copies are on their way from Scotland via boat)

Year 2000:

We`ll be reissuing paperbacks of Humphrey Carpenter`s authorized biography of JRR Tolkien in June, along with the Letters of JRR Tolkien with a revised and expanded index.

In the Fall, plans are fuzzier, but I hope to get out Volumes 6-9 of the History of Middle-earth as paperbacks. We may also release the 2nd edition of The Silmarillion here that season -- but may do it as a paperback.