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Old 08-09-2009, 10:17 AM   #24
davem
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davem is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.davem is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
From 1968 onwards Allen & Unwin published a single volume paperback of LotR (with Pauline Baynes wonderful cover painting). What's interesting about this edition in the context of this thread is that this it uses the Second Edition text, in the Foreword of which the footnote guide (from the First ed. Foreword as given above) to pronunciation is absent - so as with all the Second Edition LotR's there is nothing to help the reader in pronouncing the names until after they've finished the story & get to the Appendices - so unless you're someone who reads the Appendices first, you will have read the story & come up with your own pronunciations before you get to the correct ones - but this p/b edition is even more interesting (& less useful) in this context, as it omits all the Appendices except the Tale of Aragorn & Arwen from Appendix A - so you could read the whole book & never realise there was a 'correct' way to pronounce the names.

Two things to notice further - one, this edition appeared during Tolkien's lifetime, & two, there is a note appended to the Foreword which states:

Quote:
"The index & all but one of the numerous appendices have been omitted. Though they contain much information that has proved very interesting to many readers, only a small part is necessary to the reading of the tale"
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