A couple of years ago I ran across some used copies of the Lord of the Rings trilogy at a used bookstore for a buck apiece. They were the fifth Ballantine edition published in 1988:
I bought them, because my older copies
were falling apart at the seams. They were taped together along the spines and generally very difficult to read.
I decided the other day to re-read the books. It’s been about ten years since I last did, and while the movies were good I’m partial to the text.
It’s a great pleasure to read copies of books which are in good condition. My first copies were the original Ballantines:
They were so well-thumbed they fell apart within a year. Those were the days when the trilogy went through about a printing a month
The first Ballantine paperback edition was printed in October that year [1965], and sold a quarter of a million copies within ten months. On September 4 1966, the novel debuted on New York Times’ Paperback Bestsellers list as number three, and was number one by December 4, a position it held for eight weeks.
Can I recommend the Signum University YouTube series “Exploring the Lord of the Rings?” It’s a close reading, combined with field trips into Lord of the Rings Online. Fun and really informative.