# Advice on The Silmarillion



## ColtranesSound (Apr 4, 2020)

I'm planning to get a copy of The Silmarillion soon and I know there are some different editions and it kind of confuses me. What is a good copy to pick up? I would definitely prefer hardcover.
Thanks!


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 4, 2020)

Welcome, ColtranesSound!

I think I would recommend this nicely produced edition, illustrated with 48 color plates by Ted Naismith:



There was an earlier edition (the red DJ), but contained only about 30 illustrations.

There are other hardbacks -- a limited slipcase edition, for instance, but rather expensive. I see the one above for as little as $25.

I believe the original is still in print also.


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## Elthir (Apr 5, 2020)

ColtranesSound said:


> I'm planning to get a copy of The Silmarillion soon and I know there are some different editions and it kind of confuses me. ( . . .)




From a textual standpoint, as far as I know there are only two editions, and not much difference between them. So I guess the rest is probably up to what you like and can afford, as far as the look and binding and so on. The Second Edition adds part of a letter from JRRT to Milton Waldman. Also, CJRT explains: "I have removed a number of errors in the text and index which until now have escaped correction in the hardback printings (only) of _The Silmarillion_."

Anyway, if it's for your first read, unlike our esteemed S-eS, I would advise a not-illustrated copy . . . to let your mind take the "first walk" so to speak, on its own. (Or at most . . . if an edition exists in which the art is more . . . erm, decorative . . . well, at the moment, I can't describe what I mean here, at least briefly, so disregard this parenthetical meandering.)

The Second Edition contains one textual change that I disagree with, in a roundabout way, but that's a long, pedantic story.

I pre-ordered my first hardback edition. Yes, back in 1977!

🐾


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 5, 2020)

Good point about first readings, Ga-- Elthir; there is something to be said for allowing the author to paint the "original" pictures in words.

In which case, a paperback would do, and a more permanent edition could wait.

So two different approaches, ColtranesSound. Over to you.

BTW, Elthir: I bought that first printing too. About $7.50, wasn't it?


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## Elthir (Apr 5, 2020)

I'll defer to your memory there S-eS. 

I do recall a time when the red, one volume (in slipcase) hardback _The Lord of the Rings_ was $30.00. I worked weekends to get it, attaching messages to birds as fast as I could. We got paid by the pigeon.

It was a different time.


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## ColtranesSound (Apr 9, 2020)

Thanks, guys, I ended up going with that hardcover edition as it matches my set of The Lord of the Rings really well. I'll try my best to not rely on the illustrations.


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## Elthir (Apr 9, 2020)

Elthir said:


> The Second Edition contains one textual change that I disagree with, in a roundabout way, but that's a long, pedantic story.




Well, since no one asked, here's the shorter version:

The number of the Numenorean rulers was changed (in two instances) in the second edition Silmarillion, to match another alteration (not made by Tolkien himself) to _The Return of the King,_ Appendix A, where a king called_ Tar-Ardamin_ was added to the list of the rulers of Numenor. This king now appears in later editions, lifted from the posthumously published _Line of Elros in Unfinished Tales._

I might be missing something here, but in 1964 even Tolkien (in a letter) seems unsure if he had simply miscounted, or a name had dropped out. And I can't, as yet, locate any draft text for Appendix A in which a king named Tar-Ardamin appears. With all due respect to Hammond and Scull, and the late great Christopher Tolkien of course, I would have simply altered the number in Appendix A, and avoided the domino effect into the second edition Silmarillion -- again, unless I'm missing something important here -- but anyway, in my opinion, any "error" is only fairly counted as an error within the context of author-published work, which _The Line of Elros_ is not.

In short, mentally correct _The Line of Elros_ if need be, and if Appendix A needs correction, I would have been as light-handed as possible, and changed the number to match the list of names there.

And yes. I'm annoying.


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## Olorgando (Apr 9, 2020)

Elthir said:


> ...
> And yes. I'm annoying.


Actually, any *one* of your alter egos is tolerable. It's just when you allow you dysfunctional "relationship" to bubble to the surface *here* that reduces the "gruntled-factor".😜


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## Elthir (Apr 9, 2020)

LOL!

"Tolerable" . . . I promised my wife -- in my wedding vows (last century) -- to be tolerable 😄


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## Olorgando (Apr 9, 2020)

Elthir said:


> LOL!
> "Tolerable" . . . I promised my wife -- in my wedding vows (last century) -- to be tolerable 😄


Our vows are "last-century" too (unavoidably, there are dingbats that upgrade that to "last millennium" without meaning anything else).
But "tolerable" sounds to me as if the marriage vow ambitions have taken a nosedive.
Not that I can remember ours specifically - it was a bureaucratic "sanctioning" of an existing situation (and we've passed more than 20 years since that, we old coots).


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