Where are they?

[ArwenStar]

I’m in Australia, and I really want to get all 13 editions of the history of middle earth firsthand but I can only find omnibus editions! Help!

 

[Olorgando]

I’m in Australia, and I really want to get all 13 editions of the history of middle earth firsthand but I can only find omnibus editions! Help!

Erm, officially HoMe has twelve volumes, so I'll give a wild guess that with 13 editions you're including the 1980 "Unfinished Tales". Not unreasonably, but not "official".
I was "lucky" (being an old codger by now, which makes that "luck" relative) to be able to buy the HoMe series more or less as it was published. I think almost half of my paperbacks were the result of mercilessly prowling every bookstore I stumbled across in a three-week vacation by car to Ireland - and crossing northern England on the way there and back (now where have we read that statement before? ). I had to order volume 12, which ended up being the only book of the series by JRRT's American publisher Houghton Mifflin (and the only hardcover).
But at least in English, there are omnibus editions (things may be different in Old Europe). I'm German, though I'm a dual native speaker due to my personal history. The only parts of HoMe that have been translated into German were the "Book of Lost Tales" volumes 1 and 2, so monoglottal German speakers are missing out on ten of the books.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I see Amazon AU seems to offer only that expensive set. You could check ordering from Amazon US or UK, or alternatively, eBay -- I saw the boxed set of the first five, in paperback, for less than $20 US.

Good luck!

 

[ArwenStar]

Thanks

Erm, officially HoMe has twelve volumes, so I'll give a wild guess that with 13 editions you're including the 1980 "Unfinished Tales". Not unreasonably, but not "official".

but I don’t count unfinished tales (I count the index)
Still, I’ll try to look around. (Might be hanging around in a few op shops (not unusual))

I'm German, though I'm a dual native speaker due to my personal history. The only parts of HoMe that have been translated into German were the "Book of Lost Tales" volumes 1 and 2, so monoglottal German speakers are missing out on ten of the books.

Cool. I’m just starting to learn German. Not very good at it, though.

 

[Olorgando]

...
Cool. I’m just starting to learn German. Not very good at it, though.

Index? Oh … published in 2002, six years after the series was completed - totally missed it.

As I grew up bi-lingual, I was spared the agony that some people seem to feel when grappling with the German language, learning it (later in life) as a foreign language.
I had a bit of that with French and Latin in high school in the US, French again in an intensive course with the company, and learning a few crumbs of turista Spanish (the Latin helped there).
But dear old Mark Twain, who traveled to Europe at least two or three times, also spent some time in Germany, and, apparently, learned some German.
His comments on the language's idiosyncrasies are often hilarious, perhaps especially to someone like me who has both German and English as mother tongues, so to speak. 🤣

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I'd also recommend his essay "On Taming the Bicycle". And the one on tobacco.