Just found out the original 1930s edition of The Hobbit used a specific kind of goat skin for the cover. Read it in a footnote in a library book about publishing history.

2 comments

2 Comments

Footnotes in library books are a goldmine for that kind of detail. I tracked down a first edition of an old repair manual once because a footnote mentioned it had diagrams missing from later prints. Took six months of checking used book sites.

jana_lewis162d ago

Used to think footnotes were just boring extra stuff. Your story about finding those missing diagrams changed my mind completely. Now I always check them.