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First Edition. Octavo, original blue cloth titled & decorated in gilt on spine panel, top page edges stained blue. 365 pp, map of The Realms of the Noldor and the Sindar inserted facing page 121, large folding map of Beleriand and the Lands to the North tipped in at rear, both maps printed in red and black. The correct first printing of the first edition: "First published in 1977" on copyright page with no statement of reprinting. Printed by William Clowes & Sons, the dust jacket with no price (and not price clipped!) on the lower front flap. Technically, this is the UK edition, Export issue; these copies were printed first for export to Canada and precede the UK Domestic issue which was printed by Billing & Sons by offset lithography from this edition. The jacket is correct as well, the Export edition was issued with an unpriced jacket and the later UK Domestic issue has a price of £4.95 on the jacket flap. The issue points for THE SILMARILLION are actually very simple: The UK Export edition precedes all others, and is identified by the points mentioned above. There was a worldwide release date of September 15, 1977; copies of the Export issue were printed first in order to be available in Canada on the date of publication. There are several other so-called issue points: "missing full stop on page 330 line 4 after "Feanor"; "Lord of the Waters" and "King of the Sea" in italics on p 352 line 39"; but these errors are true of both the Export and the Domestic issue (the Domestic issue being reproduced by offset lithography from the export issue). The only real issue points that matter are the printer listed on the copyright page (it must be Clowes) and the unpriced jacket. CONDITION: Mild fading to top page edges, touch of fading to top edges of the cloth; ink inscription on front free endpaper (Christmas, 1977). Light rubbing and a few tiny marks to the jacket. A bright, very good or better copy; quite nice, map intact. Note: The red lettering on the spine panel is very prone to fading, heer it is unfaded, crisp and bright. The Silmarillion is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic works, edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay. The Silmarillion, along with J. R. R. Tolkien's other works, forms an extensive, though incomplete, narrative that describes the universe of Eä in which are found the lands of Valinor, Beleriand, Númenor, and Middle-earth within which The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place. After the success of The Hobbit, and prior to the publication of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's publisher requested a sequel to The Hobbit, and Tolkien sent them an early draft of The Silmarillion. But through a misunderstanding, the publisher rejected the draft without fully reading it, with the result that Tolkien began work on "A Long Expected Party", the first chapter of what he described at the time as "a new story about Hobbits", which became The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion comprises five parts. The first part, Ainulindalë, tells of the creation of Eä, the "world that is". Valaquenta, the second part, gives a description of the Valar and Maiar, the supernatural powers in Eä. The next section, Quenta Silmarillion, which forms the bulk of the collection, chronicles the history of the events before and during the First Age, including the wars over the Silmarils which gave the book its title. The fourth part, Akallabêth, relates the history of the Downfall of Númenor and its people, which takes place in the Second Age. The final part, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, is a brief account of the circumstances which led to and were presented in The Lord of the Rings. [Wiki].
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