Tolkien: A Biography
Humphrey Carpenter
1977 First U.S. Edition
Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston
ISBN: 0395253608
Hardcover in dust-jacket
xii, 292 pp.
Photographs by various
Hammond Page Ref.: pp. 330-331
Notes
Typeset chiefly as for the Allen & Unwin 1977 First Edition of J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography.
Includes a large number of previously unpublished extracts from letters, poems and other writings by Tolkien together with a reproduction of a page from the manuscript of The Lord of the Rings.
1st Printing: June 29, 1977 – 35,000 copies
2nd Printing: 1977
At least two printings issued. Archival records from Houghton Mifflin indicate that a third and fourth printing were planned for or possibly printed (in October and December of 1977 respectively) but none have yet been seen. They may have been cancelled when the book did not sell as well as was hoped.
The 2nd Printing was also issued by the Book-of-the-Month Club. It can be distinguished from the trade edition by the following features: year printed on title page, no ISBN on jacket’s back cover, blind stamp on back board, no price on jacket’s inside flap.
Jacket price: $10.00.
