| My introduction to Tolkien | |
| I first read The Hobbit in the 5th grade, about a year after the animated movie was released. My sixth grade class was introduced to that movie during library time, and it was so far from what I had imagined that I insisted upon being excused, fairly early on. Yes I was kindof a piece of work, even then. I hadn't realized how much I liked that story until something tried to change it for me. When I related this story to my father, he suggested that I might like The Lord of the Rings: he had it on a shelf in the family room. It didn't hold my interest until I tried a second time, a few years later, but then it was instantly my favorite book. I read those old BRem MMPBs several times while I still lived at home, and I took them with me (very much battered as they were), when I left. | |
| My introduction to online search | |
| It had occurred to me that I should bring Dad's books back... but they started to fall apart, so I decided to replace them instead. The set wanted wasn't readily available locally, and back then, books listed for sale online didn't have photos. I searched for title, format, and year and wound up buying TWO sets that weren't the right one. They were really cool though, and I could stand to have a new set too, so... neither one was sent back. I went digging now and then. I had read The Silmarillion a few times in high school, though my father didn't recommend it - he was in the "Elvish Bible" camp. It did seem rather thrown together, but I thought it was otherwise brilliant, so I bought one, and anything else I ran across with the Tolkien name on it. I wasn't actively collecting, but a collection was happening. | |
| Fear of Tolkien movies and unintended consequences. | |
| When Peter Jackson's FotR was released, friends invited me, but I wouldn't go. Everyone said I just had to, I'd love it, it was amazing! I had disliked the animated Hobbit, and there was no way in Hell I was going to pay to risk seeing my favorite story butchered. I was that vehement about it, which I guess is a little weird ...and this is how word of my heretofore unremarkable Tolkien appreciation became known in my social circles. So somebody bought me the PB and TPB copies of The History of Middle-Earth. I was stunned. Upon recovery, I jumped up and walked them around the room, making exclamations - probably not very polite ones. I had supposed I had read all the M-E there ever was going to be, and here I was holding NINE volumes of creation story. Publication of The History of Middle-Earth started when I was ...14? Later I was a crazy young adult set loose on the world, and then had a baby at home - I wasn't buying new books back then, and it never occurred to me there might be new Tolkien material available 10-20 years after his death-? (we're coming up on 50, and I think we're finally scraping the bottom of the desk drawers!). Internet commerce was much safer and more consumer friendly by 2001. I was shopping for hard covers before finishing Lost Tales, had decided maybe eBay was not so bad, and set out to find EVERYTHING, to know everything there is to know about J.R.R. Tolkien and his creations, and to have everything I want of it in my library - starting with first printings of HoME in HC and the BRem set I had failed to locate before. Two BRem sets, in fact. | |
| How Two became 200 | |
| So, internet images of products had become common, but book shopping there was still complicated. The publishing industry had adopted the ISBN, but without clear consensus regarding its use. Anything published before 1970 had no ISBN, and a lot of people with books to sell still didn't use them. One ebay reseller actually told me he never gave out ISBNs even if asked, because buyers would be able to go find books for less money - I immediately and permanently stopped selling to him. There was a great online bibliography for UK publications, but those books were half a lifetime and half a world away. Most of the material was close to home, it just took ages to locate, so I started to build lists. I scoured online sales, took pictures of copyright pages in book and thrift stores, and bought rather an insane number of books. The lists I used to keep all this research got pretty messy and too long to be convenient, so they became web pages with pictures. And here we are. You didn't suppose I built this for you-? Great gods, no... I just wanted to know EVERYTHING, and never, ever miss anything important again, and thought I'd share. | |
| Further information regarding specific books. | My Tolkien book collection... |
| Currently occupies 42 linear board feet of shelf. | |