The Return of the King
J.R.R. Tolkien
1956 First U.S. Edition
Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston
ISBN: N/A
Hardcover in dust-jacket
416 pp.
Cover illustration by Walter Lorraine
Hammond Page Ref.: pp. 101-102
Tolkien Collector Ref.: Issue no. 22, pp. 22-30 (Frisby)*
Notes
Typeset as for the Allen & Unwin 1955 First Edition.
Published January 5, 1956.
Stated Print History:
1st Impression: October 1955 – 5,000 copies
2nd Impression: November, 1955 (does not exist)
3rd Impression: January, 1957 (does not exist)
4th Impression: May, 1958 – 1,000 copies
5th Impression: 1959 – 1,000 copies
6th Impression: 1960 (does not exist)
7th Impression: 1961 – 1,000 copies
8th Impression: 1961 – 1,000 copies
9th Impression: 1962 – 1,500 copies
10th Impression: 1963 – 2,500 copies
11th Impression: 1965 – 2,500 copies
12th Impression: 1965 – 1,750 copies
13th Impression: 1966 – 5,000 copies
A 1st Impression dust-jacket can be recognized by the ‘$5.00’ price on the front flap. Compared to later impressions it is larger and bolder, has a dollar sign with two uprights (as opposed to one) which extend well above the top of the ‘5’ and whose loop descends well below the level of the zeroes.
With the 10th Impression the dust-jacket color scheme was altered. Copies of the 10th Impression have also been seen with jackets using the earlier color scheme indicating perhaps that either the jacket was printed twice during this print run or that surplus 9th Impression jackets were used. Both styles of jacket are priced at $5.00.
The first three impressions thus (1st, 4th and 5th) lack any statement of year or impression number (aside from the 1st Impression which states the year on the title page). The first seven impressions thus (i.e. up to and including the 10th Impression) were bound in the US from imported British sheets. Consequently, each US impression has a corresponding UK impression.
The report of this edition as a possible ‘Christmas Extra’ from the Science Fiction Book Club (mentioned in Hammond’s Bibliography, p. 102) has been found to be erroneous, referring in fact to the Reader’s Union 1960 Book Club Edition. See TolkienGuide.US for further detail.
Jacket price: $5.00; $5.95 (11th Impression).
*Steven M. Frisby put together a very useful guide entitled ‘Identifying First Edition Printings of the Houghton Mifflin Lord of the Rings Part III’ which was printed in The Tolkien Collector, Issue no. 22, pp. 22-30 in January, 2000. Further information can also be found in plenty at TolkienBooks.net.
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