2nd edition
 

<font color="red">On my Silmarillion book, I noticed 2 words at the top..."Second Edition". I have searched the B-D's and can't find an answer.

<font color="blue">Is there a 1st edition somewhere out there that I don't know about? And if so, how different is it from the 2nd, and where can I get it?

[ April 06, 2003: Message edited by: Eruwen ]

Yeah, the first edition was published in 1977.The second edition makes some very minor changes, mostly of spelling, etc. Nothing major. There are far fewer alterations between the first & second editions of Sil, than between the first & second editions of LotR, for instance. (You did know there were two editions of LotR, didn't you?).

Well, seeing I was born in the eighties and I just started reading the books 2 years ago, no I didn't. Wow. Thanks Davem.

By the way, there's also a couple of different editions of the hobbit. The main difference is the Riddles in the Dark chapter, which was almost totally re-written. In the original, which I haven't read, only read about, Gollum actually gave the Ring to Bilbo after he won the Riddle contest, but Tolkien decided, once he started on writing LotR that Gollum wouldn't have done that, so he re-wrote the chapter to bring it in line with what he was doing in LotR.
Going back to the first ed of LotR, one of the things that I've come across is that in it, in the scene after Aragorn has looked in the Palantir, & Gimli asks him what he said to Sauron he snaps 'I told him i have a rascal dwarf which I'd happily swap for a couple of serviceable Orcs!' There's also a line from Gandalf on Caradras, where Legolas asks him why he doesn't start a fire & Gandalf snaps back 'I suppose I coud set you alight, you might burn well' - those lines (quoted from memory) were certainly in the original drafts of LotR, because Christopher Tolkien gives them in the volumes of HOME (6-9) which deal with the writing of LotR, but I can't vouch for whether they were in the published edition. I have seen the first edition of Lotr on sale for around £750 which would be, what, $1,200 or something, if you're really interested in reading it!

Davem, I didn't know that, that's really interesting...sounds to me like the first edition was a good deal grumpier.

I must also boast of my much-loved 1977 UK first edition Sil, still in its dust cover...ah, I well remember the excitement of buying it with my saved-up pocket money.

Lalaith, I don't think it was so much grumpiness - I think Tolkien wanted it to come across as banter/sarcasm, but decided it didn't work.
I also have the UK first ed. Sil (unfortunatly its the second impression, so I missed the first print run!) I do have a first ed first impression of UT, though!

BTW, if you'd like to read the original Riddles in the Dark, but don't have the spare money for a first edition, just go out and buy the recently revised and edited "The Annotated Hobbit". You can click on The Barrow-Downs store and can find it there. That sells for about $25 and includes lots of interesting stories and comments in the margins as well as the text of the First edition chapter.

sharon