Copy-Specific: NZ Distributed Clowes, Remaindered

Random shelf pick. 

 

S.043, a standard Clowes First State (Cloth Binding Variant) copy of The Silmarillion, sans dustjacket. Copy-specific features: diagonal remainder marks to fore- and top-edges. Acquired from New Zealand bookseller, STACKSTREET BOOKS, in 2007. Lives on shelf, wrapped in kraft paper.

 

While the conditions for the remaindering of unsold stock in the UK in the 1970s is well documented [1], the practise of remaindering (or equivalent) exported British books is less clear; cf. Clowes Methuen discussion (para. 4, ref. 6). For the domestic UK market there was normally an agreement in place for booksellers to return stock, within a defined timescale. Publishers could also manage the sale of unsold or slow-moving stock through NATIONAL BOOK SALES, an arrangement allowing publishers to sell ‘net books’ below net prices. For Commonwealth countries like New Zealand and Australia—selling imported UK books—these arrangements were not applicable (or practical); stock was managed within the export country's own domestic market, and on the basis of whatever agreement had been made with the specific publisher when sold into these ‘closed market(s)’. 

 

In Auckland, at this time, remaindered stock was either sold from the publisher's distributor warehouse (where it had been returned) or passed to one of several ‘remainder warehouses’.[2] It is not known how or when this specific copy of The Silmarillion came to be remaindered—if this is indeed the case—or what arrangement GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN (GA&U) had in place in New Zealand at this time. It is unlikely the 1977 incarnation of The Silmarillion was ever remaindered in the UK; HARPERCOLLINS still had bound GA&U second impression copies in 1992—after their acquisition of UNWIN HYMAN—which they distributed in John Howe dustjackets along with their own newly printed edition. This stock—printed in 1977 and held throughout the 1980s—must have sold in sufficient quantities to have justified not being disposed of via remainder markets; it is also possible (perhaps likely) GA&U's publishing agreement(s) with the TOLKIEN ESTATE prohibited The Silmarillion being remaindered or imposed conditions making this impractical. 

 

Remaindering is not something you see discussed (or even mentioned) much. The distribution ‘evidence’, here presented, is also worth noting. Of course, this copy could have been remaindered elsewhere; I have presumed for the purposes of discussion.

 

REFERENCES:

1. UNWIN, Stanley; UNWIN, Philip. The Truth About Publishing. GA&U, 1976 (8th Ed.), pp. 131–133. 

2. STACKSTREET BOOKS. Bookseller, Auckland, NZ. PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE with author, July 2007.

 

Also on SILMARILLION MINUTIAE

❆ The Silmarillion — Clowes First State (Cloth Binding Variant) (1977)

❆ Code