Beautiful illustration, from The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, Allen & Unwin, 3rd Edition, 6th Impression. Printed in Great Britain. Circa: 1971.

This my 1977 copy of Silmarillion. First American Edition, first printing. It has the “Father Giles of Ham” typo; should be “Farmer” not “Father”. On page 229, the right margin between lines 27-32 are slightly cut off.

This is the American Non-first edition/printing of JRR Tolkien’s “Silmarillion.” The dust jacket has easy marks to determine — inner front jacket does not have a price; back of the jacket does not have ISBN numbers. While the copyright page states “American First Edition” and printing runs, one must check the back panel of the hardcover for indention mark. In this instance, if it has a “star”, then we know it’s not first printing. Finally, there are no broken (cut off) text on the right margin of page 229; 1st/1st edition shows broken text on that page.

Recently I came across a copy of “The Hobbit” by JRR Tolkien. I never knew that there were so many versions or variations out there. Even though I know this copy was published by “Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston,” there are no informations on copyright, printing runs, or dates.

I’ve noticed throughout the book, there are tiny alphabets called “signature marks” on the bottom pages; e.g. page 33, “B”, page 41 “B*” etc. For comparision purposes, here are all the signature marks for this copy:

33B, 41B*, 73C*, 97D, 105D*, 129E, 137E*, 161F, 169F*, 193G, 225H, 233H*, 257I, 265I*, 289K, 297K*, 307*.

American edition, with 315 numbered pages. Light green cover, 21cm in length.