Reddit mentions of The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun

>I would like to see a LOTR edition that includes Tolkien's illustrations, like they did with some of the latter editions of The Hobbit.

I haven't read The Art Of The Lord Of The Rings, but to the best of my knowledge it contains all of the LOTR related artwork and illustrations Tolkien did, little of which is really comparable to the full illustrations he did for T.H (with the LOTR I think most of the illustrations were maps/sketches/illustrations of buildings to help him plan out the geography, rather than designed specifically to accompany the text but I may be mistaken), his artwork in T.H has a definite charm to it but Tolkien recognized his own limitations as an artist and IIRC he talks about declining and offer to illustrate LOTR himself in one of his letters (frankly I'm surprised he even found the time to write it)

>The P.E. are expensive! I suppose a great deal of work goes into compiling these but I will probably shy away from them (for now, at least).

Like I said I don't read/have much interest in the linguistic material, though I'd imagine such journals have very small print runs and a limited amount of readers, pushing the cost up for everyone involved.

>It is amazing how vast the world of Middle-earth and Tolkien is.

It certainly is, and there is still apparently a huge amount of unpublished material (though whether any if merits publication is a different matter).

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Index:Unpublished_material

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letters_not_published_in_%22The_Letters_of_J.R.R._Tolkien%22

(In The Readers Companion is noted that as of 2006 Hammond and Scull had recorded some 1,500 unpublished letters, and more continue to come to light)


http://thehalloffire.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2250

>A further, but quite distinct, consideration in this connection lies in the relation of The History of Middle-earth to the original writings. In my Foreword to The Peoples of Middle-earth, pp.ix-x, I referred to the forerunner of the History as 'an entirely "private" study, without thought or purpose of publication: an exhaustive investigation and analysis of all the materials concerned with what came to be called the Elder Days, from the earliest beginnings, omitting no detail of name-form or textual variation.' This work, which I called The History of the Silmarillion, and which I began after the publication of my 'constructed' text, runs to more than 2600 very closely typed pages, and it does not even touch on the Second and Third Ages. When the possibility arose of publishing at least part of this work, in some form, it was obvious that it would have to be heavily reduced and curtailed, and the part of The History of Middle-earth dealing with the Elder Days is indeed a new presentation of The History of the Silmarillion, and a severe contraction of it, especially in respect of the sheer quantity of variant manuscript material reproduced in full.

And then you have the various annotated, illustrated or expanded editions of the books with even more material...

Worth noting 'The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun' is being re-released later this year:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lay-Aotrou-Itroun-J-Tolkien/dp/0008202133

>Now I see all the biographical and analysis works include exclusive previously-unpublished material; and collecting things with a similar suit outside the most popular books is simply impossible.

Yes that is unfortunately true, unless you are very very rich, the best you can do is pick and choose on what seems most interesting.

>One could argue whether these are part of the Legendarium, but surely a true collector would not want to miss any of Tolkien's writings.

Well, good luck trying to track down a copy of:

http://www.tolkienbooks.net/php/philologists.php

for a reasonable price!

>Also, would you recommend The Atlas of Middle-Earth?

Definitely, excellent book, here's the table of contents if you are interested:

http://imgur.com/a/FSME9

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Atlas_of_Middle-earth

Though again make sure you buy the revised 2nd (not sure if there is a 3rd) edition.

>Regarding LOTR, I've heard the 60th Anniversary Edition from HarperCollins contains the most correct text. I think its worth getting.

I've been thinking about getting that myself, but I've heard mixed things about the binding, and the plastic slipcase looks a little flimsy but the Alan Lee illustrations are very tempting...I currently have a 2007 paperback edition based on the 50th Anniversary text and I think the 60th edition only has a couple of minor corrections from that (though I may be wrong).