Hello and welcome to Talking Talking. Today we're going to look at the recent Harper Colons edition of the finished tales, but this time we're going to look at the Illustrated edition, which comes in a nice box like this. So I've opened the box, have a look inside, and talk a little bit about the book. So you might remember a few months ago there was a standard Illustrated Hardback edition released in the UK by Harper Colons, and it was a really nice book, had great illustrations by Ted Nassmith, John Howe and then Lee. Yeah, it was a really good book. At the same time they released an Illustrated Deluxe edition of said book, and I say, opening that box, it looks a bit like this. So we're going to have a look at it. And what will also do in this video, because I think it would be useful potentially, is compare it to the other Deluxe edition that's been around for a while, which is that one. Okay, so I'll have a look at those, but more wait for that. So, unfinished tales, here we are. Now, first nice thing we get is this wraparound case featuring Ted Nassmiths, the blue wizards, I think it's called. It's a sturdy case. Looks really nice. I like that. Solid. And then we get the book, quite a decent sized book, and we can see illustrations, the text is nicely laid out, and then on the cover we can see that. So with the book, probably explaining it better than I can, comes this little card, having all about the 40th anniversary Deluxe edition. Now, says it's fully clothed by and hardback stamped in gold foil with an insect miniature of John Hunt, Hayes Hunt for the Ring, which is, okay. Hayes in a custom built slip case illustrated with the wraparound artwork by Ted Nassmith, featuring his, the blue wizards, journey East, and Shemisheng. Love that picture, always help. Color fold out poster, so inside we get a color fold out poster, which reveals the complete version of Alan Lee's dust jacket painting depicting the Numenorian Royal Ships. So this was on that standard hard cover, so there we get a full size image of that. Nice glossy. We get large double-sided color poster, which folds out to reveal colored versions of the maps of Beleriand and the lands of the North, and the west of Middle-earth at the end of the third age drawn by Christopher Tolkien. So these were drawn in 1980, so by Christopher, for the original and finished tales. So there's the west of Middle-earth at the end of the third age, and there's a map of Beleriand and the lands of the North. So really nice, really nice map this. That's a good way to do it as well, because then when you're reading the story, having another half the back page continually bookmarked, you can have this next year and then and see what's going on where. It's really good. I suppose you could frame that as well, it's kind of glossy, not super glossy, but I think despite the creases in it, I think it would look good in a frame. So we get that. That's nice. Other things it says on this piece of paper, definitive version of the text, especially reset for this edition, printed in two colors on heavyweight acid-read paper, including a ribbon marker. Ribbon marker is there, it is blue. Other things on us are asked is the binding. You can hopefully see there, it's not glued, it's and you can't get it out. I stitched. It's decent. The text, you can see it's very similar to the other edition I showed you. You've got the blue title at the top and the quality of the paper is good, it's solid, as you can see by the thickness of the book, really. It's quality paper. Other things like you get these. They're in the standard edition as well. Throughout this 18 full-color paintings by the three artists and five delicate pencil drawings, it says here. If you want those, they're limited to 4000. It says limited worldwide, first printing of just 4000 copies. So first printing, these might still be around in 10 years time and improved me wrong. I don't know, probably well. Okay, I think that's it for that one. I can't think of anything else to say. Feel free to put in any questions in the comments if you have any specific questions about that. But then, so we compared to this one. This is one that came a few years ago. I can never get out of it. Okay, that's the case. That's off. Tolkien's original first edition of this book from 1918. Obviously, posthumously published. So the first thing you notice is the paper quality isn't as good as the illustrated one. It's much more yellowy. I know it's a bit old, but it's hardly going to be a slip case, so you can't blame that. I'm just going to see if it says what kind of paper. Because this wasn't on the first editions, like some of these, there's all sorts of new answers. If you've got the first editions, they were generally produced in like Europe or the UK, where's the later ones like this one was printed and banned in China, which I think those Chinese ones have generally been inferior quality. I'm not going to get into that too much. But yeah, there's no colour on the titles, like so on the last one. It's just standard black text. There's no, obviously illustrations, but you can't blame it for that. It never said it would have. I've got the front piece there. Neat. And you've got a map at the back, which isn't as nice as the one we've just looked at clearly. But there it is. It reminds me, is there a map in the illustrated one at the back? Interesting. There is a very confirmed. There is no map at the back because you've got the attached plate map. Just to be aware, there's no map at the back of that. So there's the map there, which is fine. Look, this is pretty much the same price. The print was the same price. So it's up to you which one to go for. I think I know which one I'd go for. You could argue if you've got all these lined up on your shelf, then they might look nice together. However, if we can do this. I imagine that's in with all the other ones anyway, then it should not stick out. Potentially, if you've got the slip cases back on them, which I will just do now to illustrate to you. If I can. Okay, so even with the slip cover on, look at the size. There might be a couple of mill difference there, not substantial. So again, it's your choice. It's worth noting on the spine as well. You've got the slight multi-fundabit talking words there. Okay. Right, okay. Hopefully that was useful to someone. This is the third version of this video I've done. So hopefully this one will go out well. If you've got any questions, put them in the comments. Thank you for watching this video. And thanks everyone who subscribed recently. I've been getting some good views and then three thousand subscribers, which is astonishing really when I think of where it started. So thank you for all of that. I'll be doing a couple more videos. Hopefully over the next couple of days. We've got the latest Father Christmas letters, really nice book and that I'll have a look at. And I'll also do a look back on 2020. It's some of the other books that came out, talking books. And I look forward to next year at some of the ones we've got to look forward to next year. And I'll also, if anyone's got any questions about the channel or anything, I'll feel free to put them in comments and I'll, I'll endeavour to answer them. I think that's enough for now. Thank you so much for watching. Please, if you enjoyed this like and subscribe. And I'll see you next time. Bye.