u/zorg2099

Very excited to have just received this! The 1990 LOTR deluxe by Unwin Hyman (11th impression overall having started under George Allen & Unwin).

The book is bound in buckram with a very attractive foil blocked design on the spine and comes with a slip case. The main attraction though is the use of "India Paper" a particular high quality type of ultra thin paper drawing inspiration from papers produced by Indian mills during the colonial era. This one volume LOTR edition with 1193 pages is barely thicker than the matching deluxe Hobbit printed on regular paper!

This is achieved purely through the thinness of the paper not through tiny font—the font size is actually identical to the original three volume 2nd edition as well as the modern 60th anniversary boxset (Tolkien dust jacket design). The later comparison can be seen in the last pic with the deluxe on the bottom and the 60th anniversary on top. The layout actually uses 1 fewer line too meaning more total pages.

The thin paper of course is somewhat translucent and feels quite delicate so a certain amount of care is required when flipping pages (which could be a deal breaker for some). Nonetheless its super comfortable to hold in hand and the book opens up flat too. I believe the paper is acid free as there's zero yellowing over the past 36 years.

Earlier impressions of the deluxe had speckled page edges and a fold out map but this one has plain edges and the maps are printed on the endpapers. I don't recall when those changes happened; that's a slight negative but these later impressions are also a lot cheaper than the earliest impressions.

All in all its quite a nice book imo and something quite different compared to the various deluxe editions on offer today.

I just picked up the 2010 limited edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner & Three Other Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (The three other poems are Christabel, Kubla Khan and The Pains of Sleep)

https://web.archive.org/web/20100920185523/http://www.foliosociety.com/book/RMR/ancient-mariner

This is a beautiful oversized (33cm/13" tall) edition quarter bound in vellum. Vellum used to be a common book binding material but is now quite rare due to lack of demand. My understanding is that it differs from parchment mainly in that vellum uses animal hide rather than calfskin. I couldn't find an exact specification for this book but I presume its goatskin. Its supplied by William Cowley who are the only suppliers of the material left in the UK.

I have to say the surprising thing about it that I discovered is that it has a more paper-like feel and texture to it compared to leather. The remnants of the follicles—which also provide an interesting texture as seen on the spine—however are a reminder that the source was an animal. Nevertheless plant based substitute vellum/parchment papers such as "Elephant Hide" (eg used in the Folio 1990 Lord of the rings) thus seem a decent approximation in some ways.

The book also features extremely(!) thick paper and thus touching the deckled edges actually feels like touching soft felt as all you can feel are the fibres rather than the edges of the sheets.

The artwork by Harry Brockaway, who always does great work, is tipped in and the book also features a frontispiece that's printed directly from the wooden block and which serves as the limitation page.

I'm really happy with this acquisition from the Folio back catalogue. There were also a few other LEs in a similar style that Folio produced around this time, I think I would like to pick up The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám at some point.

Wondering if anyone can confirm if this Maude translation (978-1857150964) contains footnotes/end-notes for the French sections? Thanks!