From: "LV" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: A Letter to HarperCollins Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 13:58:47 -0700 Organization: InterWorld Communications Lines: 82 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 134.173.136.16 X-Trace: nntp1.interworld.net 1064264328 65708 134.173.136.16 (22 Sep 2003 20:58:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.interworld.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 20:58:48 +0000 (UTC) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!in.100proofnews.com!in.100proofnews.com!peernews-us.colt.net!newsfeed.news2me.com!elnk-nf2-pas!elnk-pas-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!nntp-out.svc.us.xo.net!nntp1-feeder.SJ.svc.us.xo.net!newsfeed.concentric.net!sjc1.nntp.concentric.net!news.interworld.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:122998 Dear HarperCollins, Your firm is rightly proud of your status as Tolkien's publisher. Rayner Unwyn recalled how the University press offered a pence for anyone who could discover a misprint in one of their Bibles. In a similar spirit, and in keeping with Douglas A. Anderson's "Note on the Text", I wish to offer a list of misprints in one of your editions. I am sure you are already aware of the grave errors in the editions of _The Lord of the Ring_ bought by the screenwriters of the current films. (The semi-official set copy of the book, the fine one-volume hardcover with the Alan Lee illustrations, has clearly escaped these errors as the production design of these films was striking in its textual fidelity.) I do not wish to point out the omissions of paragraphs and pages so particularly evident in the second film. The screenwriters, thrown back on their own ingenuity, have clearly done their best to make up for their copies' lack of Book Four's "The Window on the West" and much of "The Forbiden Pool"; rather I mean to point up small omissions in their copies of Book Two's "A Journey in the Dark" and "The Bridge of Khazad-dum". (All page numbers refer to the Houghton Mifflin one-volume softcover, whose text conforms to your 1994 edition.) p. 287-293 Missing or mutilated, the gravest error being the misprint of "Saruman" for "the Enemy" in the following line on p. 288: "That is a road at any rate that Saruman will least expect us to take." p. 294-316 Again, there are many brief omissions you are no doubt already aware of, including Gimli's song (p. 308 through the first half of p. 309.) p. 317 "hewed ... had" omitted in the first full sentence, producing the misprint: "Gimli sprung up on Balin's tomb." p. 317 Gandalf's line and the second full paragraph have been mutilated in typesetting, produce the following lines: "The troll thrust with his spear straight at Frodo. The blow caught him on the right side, and Frodo was hurled to the wall and pinned." p. 318-321 Many omissions, most gravely the first appearance of the Balrog and Legolas' later identification of it. p. 322 The second sentence of the first full paragraph mistakenly reads: "His enemy halted again, facing him, spreading out his two vast wings." p. 322 The words between the commas have been omitted to produce: "It stepped forward slowly onto the bridge, and its wings were spread from wall to wall ...." (The screenwriters evidently did not reflect on why the creature fell to its doom rather than attacking the party from the air.) p. 322 The last paragraph of the page mistakenly reads: "The Balrog fell, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. Gandalf fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. 'Fly, you fools!' he cried, and was gone." p. 323 The 5th paragraph is missing. I hope this list will aid you in your usual meticulousness in preserving Tolkien's legacy. It is certainly too late in the process of filmmaking to alter the final forthcoming film (although perhaps the reshoots are efforts at introducing greater conformity to the production crew's accurate texts); but it is not to late to provide the screenwriters, and anyone else who has been denied full and accurate copies of Tolkien's masterpiece, the pleasure of reading his book as he intended it. Your loyal reader, LV ###### Message-ID: <3F6F6791.692650@none.com> From: None Organization: None X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.08 [en] (WinNT; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: A Letter to HarperCollins References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 9 Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 22:20:17 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 194.125.134.4 X-Complaints-To: news@indigo.ie X-Trace: news.indigo.ie 1064265807 194.125.134.4 (Mon, 22 Sep 2003 22:23:27 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 22:23:27 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!newsfeed.freenet.de!213.253.16.105.MISMATCH!mephistopheles.news.clara.net!news.clara.net!diablo.theplanet.net!news.indigo.ie!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:123008 LV wrote: [evidence of crawling to publishers] Ugh! Must want them to read galley proofs for him. None. ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: A Letter to HarperCollins Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 16:31:38 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.93/32.576 English (American) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 21 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!in.100proofnews.com!tdsnet-transit!newspeer.tds.net!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-04!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:123029 On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 13:58:47 -0700, "LV" wrote: >Dear HarperCollins, > >Your firm is rightly proud of your status as Tolkien's publisher. Rayner >been denied full and accurate copies of Tolkien's masterpiece, the pleasure >of reading his book as he intended it. > >Your loyal reader, > >LV > Good one, Hat! the softrat ==> Careful! I have a hug and I know how to use it! mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- Why do psychics have to ask you for your name? -- Steven Wright ###### From: Stan Brown Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: A Letter to HarperCollins Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 23:52:50 -0400 Organization: Oak Road Systems Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.60 X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 21 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!colt.net!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news-out.visi.com!petbe.visi.com!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-04!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:123023 In article in rec.arts.books.tolkien, LV wrote: >I am sure you are already aware of the grave errors in the editions of _The >Lord of the Ring_ bought by the screenwriters of the current films. [big snip] Good satirical writing! (Is "satirical" the word I want? The piece pretty clearly had an inner meaning at divergence from its surface form.) -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA http://OakRoadSystems.com Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site) Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm ###### From: Linards Ticmanis Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: A Letter to HarperCollins Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 15:51:13 +0200 Organization: University of Saarland, Computing Center, Germany. Lines: 21 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20030917 X-Accept-Language: de, en In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 0.76.7.0 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.belwue.de!feed.news.nacamar.de!news.f.de.plusline.net!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-kar1.dfn.de!hades.rz.uni-saarland.de!hades.rz.uni-sb.de Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:123040 LV wrote: > Dear HarperCollins, [...] Three words: Waste paper basket. On the other hand, a real list of real misprints might actually be a good idea. There are still some in the newest printed editions. So why not make a little list the next time you re-read it? -- Linards Ticmanis The Master said, "The business of laying on the colors follows the preparation of the plain ground." ###### Message-ID: <3F7150B8.F99F1548@none.com> From: None Organization: None X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.08 [en] (WinNT; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: A Letter to HarperCollins References: <3F6F6791.692650@none.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 17 Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 09:07:20 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 194.125.148.42 X-Complaints-To: news@indigo.ie X-Trace: news.indigo.ie 1064391031 194.125.148.42 (Wed, 24 Sep 2003 09:10:31 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 09:10:31 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!diablo.theplanet.net!news.indigo.ie!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:123089 Graham Lockwood wrote: > > None said: > > > LV wrote: > > > > [evidence of crawling to publishers] > > > > Ugh! Must want them to read galley proofs for him. > > Well, so much for male/female posting styles... Well, wasting satire on a Publisher... None.