The Tolkien Coming of Age Club

[Child of the 7th Age]

Whoa, Bird! You stole my book. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] That's definitely it.

Anyways, I probably couldn't afford to buy yours with all those "real" dustjackets! I really hunted and lurked to get a bargain on these at e-bay.

If you have any information about my volumes, I'd appreciate it.

My Fellowship is a 16th printing (no date--maybe that was the last one?); Two Towers is 10th impression, 1963; and Return (the one with the real dustjacket) is 10th impression, 1963. So I don't have real old ones. They all have names and/or bookplates at the front except for Fellowship. But they are nice and sturdy and the map is in good shape.

sharon

[Birdland]

Sharon - Identifying the various printings is an arcane science, based on tiny clues such as damaged type, italics vs. capital letters, and-so-on. Only the very first printings of the American editons had the date on the title page. This was apparently common for H-M in the 1950s and 60s. The first printing of FotR in 1954 was only 1,500 copies.

I had a very nice correspondence with Steven Frisby, but I have lost the e-mails. If I remember right, mine were 5th, 6th and 7th printings.

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

I ran across a hard back copy of The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two over the weekend! Needless to say, it now it in my bookcase. I had believed it out of print in hardback. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Snowdog]

I have just picked 18 as the legal coming of age. So how many of you have been reading LotR and other Tolkien books for at least 18 years? Please tell us how long ago you first read the book(s); if you like, your age at that time and what prompted you to read Tolkien.

I dont think I have seen this thread, or have and never opened it. I did a search on my member number to see if I have posted here and it didn't come up with this thread, so here goes...

It was the summer of 1975 when my neighbor and I were out on a walk when he started telling me of this book he was reading. It was called the Hobbit. He told me about Hobbits and how they liked to sit about and eat and smoke. I was mildly interested, and so when he was done he loaned it to me. I read it and liked it, and so he passed his copy of Fellowship when he was done as well. The trouble was I fell in love with the story, and I seemed to read faster than he. So I waited awhile for him to finish Two Towers, and I quickly consumed it all. Well, he had not started Return of the King by the time I was done with Two Towers, so I went to the library and checked out Return of the King.

My senior year in high school started that fall (That will give ya my age [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]) and I was toting and reading Return of the King during lunch and when ever I could, and the cement wall by the flag pole was a nice spot. There I met a girl who was also into the Lord of the Rings, and we got to know each other pretty good. We even had fun with the Tengwar in the appendices, passing notes and such. There was some construction going on nearby the flag pole, and one lunch they poured fresh cement curbs, so we decided to cut a class and we imprinted 'Friends' in Tengwar using our fingers! We did a fair job with only one small mistake being we were in a hurry to finish before being spotted. That curb remained until last winter, when the high school went through a complete renovation and it was destroyed. I visited it just before, and had I known it would be destroyed, I would have sat and chisiled it out and took it home.

So I was into Tolkien before the release of the Silmarillion. I was at a 'line party at a Walden Books for the release of the Silmarillion, for it was the first 'new' Tolkien writings to be released since the 1950's. I suffereed through the Rankin-Bass & Bakshi era, and was again suprised in a grocery store in 1984 to see in one of those checkout counter racks 'Unfinished Tales'! I impulsivly bought it, and the stories re-kindled my love in Tolkien's writings. I have since read the Lord of the Rings complete with appendices, and Unfinished Tales several times. I find the Silmarillion a harder read, and only read it a few times.

[Mithadan]

Welcome to our little cabal of the "eldest" Snowdog! Though I first read Tolkien a few years before you, I see that you are about three years my elder *bows*. I'd make a bit more of that, but it's been nearly two years since I was stripped of my title as "eldest" at the Barrow-Downs. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Linnamalle]

Pleased to meet you, Snowdog! (Great name.) And I like your sig.

I'm curious: Besides the Downs, what other expressions of Middle-Earth bubble up in your life from time to time?

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Welcome master Snowdog! Nice to see you've found the thread.

[Liriodendron]

Hi Snowdog! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Alphaelin]

Hi, Snowdog! and welcome to the thread. We must have gotten hooked on LOTR about the same time - I bought my paperback edition in '74.

I'm currently reading The Fellowship to my youngest, while encouraging my teenager to finish TTT - she only became interested in the books after seeing Orlando Bloom, lol.

Your sig reminds me of this quote from George Bernard Shaw: "Youth is wasted on the young."

[ September 11, 2003: Message edited by: Alphaelin ]

[Ealasaide]

Greetings, all!
Hilde Bracegirdle told me about this thread when I first came to the BD back in May (as Ealasaid without an "e" on the end). It's taken me this long to find it!

I first read LotR back in 1975 or so when I was in Junior High. All I can remember is being completely absorbed in it until I finished it from cover to cover, to cover, to cover! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] When I came home from school everyday, I went straight to my room & read for hours until I was finished. Then I was depressed because there wasn't any more. So, I tried to write my own Tolkein-inspired stories with mixed (and frequently laughable) results. As you can see, I've never grown out of it & am still writing Tolkein-inspired stories with mixed (and frequently laughable) results, lo, these many years later! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Hi Ealasaide! Looks like the gang's all here...well almost! And actually, quite a few of your early works were quite wonderful stories. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Linnamalle]

Where do we find them?

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

I hope you kept them Ealasaide, I wish I had kept those drawings I had done back then!

[Liriodendron]

I still have an acrylic canvas I painted (when 14) of the block print from my Hobbit book called "The trolls". I made the forest very woody and dark, with the red glowing fire, but I made the trolls florescent green, about the color of the green thumb icon on this post! [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] The trolls look good, I guess I wanted them to stand out. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] I also stuck little Bilbo in there, right by the fire. Making him beardless was hard, but I did stay true to the books description in the rendering of a hobbit. If I ever get that digital camera, I'll post it! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

I'd love to see it Liriodendron! I used to draw mostly my own characters, nothing so complicated as a scene that I can recall.

[Earendil Halfelven]

Is this where all the old people come to talk about the good ol' days of "Frodo Lives" bumper stickers? [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

(Sorry, as an 18 year old, I couldn't help it)

[Mithadan]

No, this is where Site Administrators hang out waiting for foolish youngsters to intrude. Let's see.... Shall I ban Earendil or merely disable his ability to post? Or maybe I should consider his post a joke and just laugh. Hmmmm.

Ok. Ha ha ha ha. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

[Samwise]

Oh, Liriodendron, I'd really like to see it too! Having no artistic talent myself, I enjoy taking peeks at others'. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Liriodendron]

I had a button that said "Frodo Lives" [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] my bumper sticker said...ERA NOW [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] Hopefully, I'll get a digital camera for Xmas and post my Hobbit pcture! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Samwise]

Can't wait to see the picture!
Oh, dear, like to have one of those buttons, but I don't think they were around when I was...never mind. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

*Looks at post at which Mr. Mithadan commented....* Disrespectful kids....*grumble grumble....* [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

In exactly two months my hobbit self will be of age!!! WOOOHHOOOOO! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] Wish Mr. Frodo could be here... [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

[Ealasaide]

Unfortunately, I went through a cleaning frenzy in my mid-twenties and threw out almost everything I had written as a kid. I really, really regret it now. Even the truly awful stories would have been fun to read over again now.

We should have new bumper stickers made that say "LotR Geezer...and proud of it!" or something of that sort.

Hilde -- you are too kind! I seem to remember most of my stuff from the old high school days as being rather melodramatic and pretentious. I couldn't seem to decide who I wanted to be more: Dumas, Tolkein, or Tolstoy!

Your drawings on the other hand were wonderful! I think I may still have one or two of them.. I'll have to search my parents' attic & see what I can dig up! [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

Pardon my low-brow sense of humor, but did anyone see South Park the other night? It was the episode titled "Return of the Fellowship to the Two Towers". Oh, I laughed my butt off! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Alphaelin]

I used to draw mostly my own characters,

Ooo! Ooo! I can draw stick figures! Seriously, I have always looked at artists in wonder, having no talent myself.

A LOTR parody on South Park and my hubby didn't tell me?? Wicked, wicked man. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Welcome to the Club, Snowdog - and all others whom I have forgotten to greet! (You know how it is with the memory when you get older! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ) You've come just in time to help us move to a new thread - this one has gotten so long that it takes an inordinate time to load - a nice testimony to the Fellowship of the Geezers. So grab your walkers, everyone - a moving company will bring the rocking chairs along - and come on over to The Tolkien Coming of Age Club 2! Please do not post here - this thread will be closed.