Product Description
For over fifty years, J.R.R. Tolkien’s peerless fantasy has accumulated worldwide acclaim as the greatest adventure tale ever written. No other writer has created a world as distinct as Middle-earth, complete with its own geography, history, languages, and legends. And no one has created characters as endearing as Tolkien’s large-hearted, hairy-footed hobbits. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings continues to seize the imaginations of readers of all ages, and this new three-volume paperback edition is designed to appeal to the youngest of them.
Amazon.com Review
A Christian can almost be forgiven for not reading the Bible, but there’s no salvation for a fantasy fan who hasn’t read the gospel of the genre, J.R.R. Tolkien’s definitive three-book epic, the Lord of the Rings (encompassing The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King), and its charming precursor, The Hobbit. That many (if not most) fantasy works are in some way derivative of Tolkien is understood, but the influence of the Lord of the Rings is so universal that everybody from George Lucas to Led Zeppelin has appropriated it for one purpose or another.
Not just revolutionary because it was groundbreaking, the Lord of the Rings is timeless because it’s the product of a truly top-shelf mind. Tolkien was a distinguished linguist and Oxford scholar of dead languages, with strong ideas about the importance of myth and story and a deep appreciation of nature. His epic, 10 years in the making, recounts the Great War of the Ring and the closing of Middle-Earth’s Third Age, a time when magic begins to fade from the world and men rise to dominance. Tolkien carefully details this transition with tremendous skill and love, creating in the Lord of the Rings a universal and all-embracing tale, a justly celebrated classic. –Paul Hughes
Chad M. Brick @ 4:40 pm
This is not a review of Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”. Its having been voted “The Greatest Book of the Millenium” here on Amazon.com says more than enough about the worth of Tolkien’s work. Rather, it is a review of the several hardcover editions of this fantastic story.
There are for major hardcover editions of LOTR, all published by Houghton Mifflin Co. They are essentially the same price, so I will not take that into consideration.
The best of the editions (5 stars) is the blue Alan Lee illustrated version printed in Nov 1991. I have owned this book for several years, and read it three times. It is durable, beautiful, and has no flaws that I have found. The illustrations are wonderful, though most Tolkien fans will have seen these pictures before.
The red edition printed in Nov 1974 is also a solid edition of the book (4 stars). It is every bit as good as the blue version, but does not have the illustrations. If you are the type of reader that prefers to leave everything to your imagination, this is the version for you.
Both the blue and red versions have matching editions of “The Hobbit” (Houghton Mifflin, Sep 1997 or Oct 1973, respectively). I found both of these editions to be satisfactory.
The other two major editions of LOTR – the white three-volume edition from Oct 1988 and the black seven-volume edition from Jan 2000 – are not recommended (2 stars). The print quality in both is poor, and the durability is less than that of the red and blue versions. The only advantage of these editions is portability, as the red and blue versions are single-volume and quite hefty.
Ramble on….
A. C. Johnson @ 6:57 pm
This is a particularly beautiful edition of The Lord of the Rings (ISBN: 0618260587 ), and is probably best suited for someone who is already a fan of the book, rather than for someone who is reading the book for the first time.
The format of this edition is larger than most books tend to be making it very difficult to read in any position other than sitting upright holding the book on your lap or on a desk. Each of the three volumes features a beautiful glossy dust jacket and is filled with a dozen or so full color illustrations by the famous Alan Lee.
My main problem with this edition, besides the weight and size of the books, is that the pages containing text are glossy paper. The glare caused by this type of glossy paper make it a little irritating on the eyes when reading for long stretches of time. It would have been much nicer had they published this edition with matte paper for the text and saved the glossy solely for the illustrations.
If you are a fan of Alan Lee’s artwork, and don’t necessarily intend on READING this edition, though, this is a great piece to pick up and will most likely be the type of book you end up treasuring for years to come — even if it isn’t the one you give your kids to read.
Jeff Sun @ 8:18 pm
Houghton Mifflin Co published three editions of the one-volume LOTR, all of which include the complete text and the appendices:
This 1991 centennial edition has largest text. It includes durable binding, smooth white pages, glossy illustrations, an illustrated cover jacket, and an red ribbon bookmark sewn into the binding. However, the book is the largest LOTR book I’ve ever seen in my life — It’s quite hefty.
There is a red, faux-leather collector’s edition published in 1974. It is slightly smaller in dimensions compared to the centennial edition and weighs considerably less. The cover is beautiful and unmatched in elegance. Chapter headings and margin headings are in orange red. The pages are slightly tinted yellow, as smooth as the centennial edition, and seem to emit a pleasant flagrance. However, there is “broken type” on nearly every page because the text is not conventionally set, but rather a photo offset from another edition. (Conventionally set text would read like a Word document printed with a laser printer. Photo offset would be as if one had scanned that laser-printed World document into a JPEG, and reprinted out that JPEG.) The binding of this edition also seems to be of lesser quality than the 1991 centennial edition.
There is also the LOTR Movie Art Cover edition printed in June of 2001. Like the centennial edition’s cover illustration, this edition’s movie art is also on a cover jacket. I am not too familiar with this edition, but from casual browsing, I’ve found that the text, though smallest, looks the most “conventionally set,” and the pages are of the same quality as the centennial edition. The book is smaller in height and width but thicker than the collector’s edition. The binding looks solid enough, but there is no movie art in the book.
My personal favorite is the centennial edition.
Larry Diamond @ 10:06 pm
First off this review is about this edition only. The three volume box set 2002 illustrated by Alan Lee.
If you are reading this, I am sure your questions are is this worth the money given that I probably have a set or an edition of LOTR already. For me the answer was yes.
I highly recommend this. The quality is top-notch. I was concerned because some of the reviewers seem to say that it is hard to read and or blotchy ink. It has neither of these problems.
It is on very nice, very clean, very white paper with a large font. The books are substantial even bordering on heavy. They have beautiful red cloth covers with the J.R.R.T. symbol in gold. The dust jackets are beautiful with a different Alan Lee print on the cover, back, and spine.
The box is very nice with Bilbo’s trolls and an elven ship leaving the Grey Heavens on the front and back.
The prints are all watercolors and they take up a whole page. Love them. I have always been partial to Alan Lee’s work. Is it worth the $50 roughly you can find the box set for? Depends. If you do not have a nice hardback version of LOTR I would say for sure get this. The prints are delightful, the printing is great and very readable and it looks awesome on the table between the no admittance bookends. I love it and say it is worth it for sure.
There is a one volume book with the same illustrations by Alan Lee. I think this is vastly superior as the books here are easier to handle, the three dust jackets are each suberb, and the box is very nice. Alan Lee is a great with watercolors and they are produced very well with these books. I think the high contrast of the print makes it easier to read. Think of this as a great work of art. First Tolkien’s art. Second Lee’s art. Third the art of printing a good crips text. All 3 come together here for a neat package that you will treasure for years or decades.
Martin McNelis @ 12:14 am
I’m writing this review because all of the reviews currently listed under this item refer to the books and not to the Radio Dramatisation. I’m assuming that anyone interested in this production is already familiar with either the books or the film of Fellowship of the Ring. Firstly, this is a superb production and is far superior to the Minds Eye production which you may have seen in a wooden presentation case. Although the presentation of this product could have been more attractive (and was in it’s initial CD incarnation) it is still a “must have” item for any Tolkien fan. The cast is comprised of some of the BBC’s finest actors including Ian Holm, John LeMesurier, Michael Hordern and Robert Stephenson. Ian Holm is particularly brilliant in his tortured and beautifully realised descent into despair. The production values are second to none and in some ways surpass the Peter Jackson film simply by allowing your imagination to fill in all the details. Peter Woodthorpe is stunning as GollumSmeagol and sets a very steep challenge for Andy Serkis to rise to in the forthcoming Two Towers movie.
Naturally, this is an adaptation and as such is abridged, but the only notable omissions are Bombadil, The Old Forest and the Barrow Wights. Some of the music may not be to all tastes (I personally dislike the Eagles proclamation of Saurons defeat) but all of it is beautifully orchestrated and delivered. Highlights for me would be William Nighy as Sam singing a part of the fall of Gil-Galad and his song in the tower of Minas Morgul. Gimli’s recitation of “In Moria, In Khazad Dum” has wonderful emotion and resonance and Bilbo’s last song is a beautiful and heartbreaking accompaniment to the scene at the Grey Havens.
Miranda Richardson’s Galadriel has great power and she handles the temptation of the ring masterfully. Likewise Eowyn’s challenge to the Lord of the Nazgul is amazingly powerful.
The main problem in a radio production is in finding a natural way to describe visual scenes without clumsy “Look Frodo, It’s a big walking tree…” lines. This is handled very well for the most part particularly in the Battle of Helms Deep. Brian Sibley’s decision to use the Minstrel of Gondor to tell the tale of the Battle of Pelennor Field is less successful but I found that after the first sitting I started to quite enjoy the effect.
I hope this short review has been enough to convince you that this is a very worthy addition to any collection and I hope that it appears in the correct section when you look for reviews of the Radio Play.
As a side note, although it is good, the BBC production of the Hobbit does not reach the heights that this production does, primarily due to poor choice of music style and a less than charismatic Gandalf.