[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

My only vintage book is my copy of The Silmarillion, the story of which ties in rather nicely with my last post.

During that camp, at RAF Shawbury, our intrepid band of callow young Air Cadets was unleashed on the small village for which the airfield is named with five pounds' spending money each, courtesy of Her Majesty's Government. Being who I am, I immediately gravitated to a second-hand bookshop where, to my joy, was an old copy with a royal blue cover that bears a large drawing of Lúthien Tinúviel's symbol, designed by Tolkien himself. On the back cover are similar designs, also in his unique style; namely the symbols of (left to right, top to bottom) Fingolfin, Eärendil, Idril Celebrindal, Elwë and, of course, Fëanor, all in glorious pastel technicolour.

Since I had never read The Silmarillion, and since the volume was being sold at the ridiculous price of £3.75 (the price is still written in the flyleaf in pencil) I bought this work, which I resolved to begin reading as soon as I had finished the current reading of The Lord of the Rings.

Imagine my joy when, instead of the monochrome, single-page maps in my Lord of the Rings, this work had at the back a fold-out A-3 colour map of Beleriand. Not only that, but the map depicting the territories of the Noldorin lords was also in red as well as black. I suppose that this should have set off alarm bells, but I was happy just to have so fantastic a book.

It was only several years later, when examining the frontispiece (for some reason, Tolkien's legends interested me more than the date of publication [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ), that I realised that my copy is from 1977. It isn't a George Allen and Unwin first edition, but it's the next best thing: a Book Club Associates licenced reprint. It's one of my most treasured possessions.