The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings Trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King.

TOLKIEN, J.R.R.

$2,000.00

Item Number: 146003

London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1966.

Complete second edition of each title of Tolkien’s epic, best-selling Lord of the Rings Trilogy with a later edition of The Hobbit. Octavo, 4 volumes, bound in contemporary red morocco with morocco spine labels and motifs onlaid in six compartments within raised bands, matching motifs stamped in blind on the front panel of volume, marbled endpapers to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, illustrated with drawings and folding maps. Signed by the binder, Jean Gladstone-Goodwin, on the verso of inserted custom-made title pages of typescript, pen and ink. In good condition with rubbing to the spine and extremities of each volume, a few abrasions to the front and rear panels of The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, sunning to the front panel of The Return of the King, detached title pages to The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, some rippling to the front free endpaper of The Return of the King, and a few loose endpapers in The Hobbit.

"In enchanted Middle-earth, a small, comfort-loving Hobbit is awakened from his slumbers by a visitor who tells of lost treasure. Before Bilbo Baggins returns home again, he journeys past wizards and elves, talkative trees and treasure-guarding dragons, all swirling in cosmic battle between good and evil. J.R.R. Tolkien's fully realized fantasy world won over generations of children, and dazzled adults with its deft interweaving of medieval legend and made-up languages, maps, and creatures. Tolkien legitimized the modern fantasy genre, and provided the 1960's counterculture with antiwar, back-to-Eden icons" (NYPL Books of the Century 199). “Professor Tolkien’s epic of Middle Earth… [is] one of [the twentieth] century’s lasting contributions to that borderland of literature between youth and age. There are few such books—Gulliver’s Travels, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows—what else?… [They are] destined to become this century’s contribution to that select list of books which continue through the ages to be read by children and adults with almost equal pleasure” (Eyre, 67, 134-5).