in 1965, wollheim argued that there was a copyright loophole in the american edition of "the lord of the rings" by j. r. r. tolkien. the houghton mifflin edition had been bound using pages printed in the united kingdom for the george allen &amp; unwin edition, and as a result, u.s. copyright law might not protect the text. based on this view, ace books published the first-ever paperback edition of tolkien's work, featuring cover art and hand-drawn title pages by jack gaughan. after considerable controversy and the release of a competitive authorized (and revised) edition by ballantine books (the back covers of which included a message from tolkien urging consumers to buy the ballantine edition and boycott any "unauthorized" versions – referring directly to the ace editions), ace agreed to pay royalties to tolkien and let its still-popular edition go out of print.