Search results for ""author j .r. r tolkien""

Building on the story begun in The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring this is the second part of Tolkien’s epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, featuring a striking black cover based on Tolkien’s own design, the definitive text, and a detailed map of Middle-earth. Frodo and the Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in the battle with an evil spirit in the Mines of Moria; and at the Falls of Rauros, Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape the rest of the company were attacked by Orcs. Now they continue their journey alone down the great River Anduin – alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.

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Journey with your favourite characters from Middle-earth in this official colouring book based on the epic film trilogy The Hobbit, directed by Peter Jackson.The Hobbit film trilogy brought J.R.R. Tolkien's incredible world of Middle-earth to life for millions of people. Now you can add your own artistic touches and explore this enchanted universe as never before.Bilbo Baggins' unexpected journey from Hobbiton to the lair of the fearsome Smaug in Erebor brought him into contact with colourful wizards, Dwarves, Elves and Men and into conflict with deadly Trolls, Goblins, Orcs and Wargs.From Gandalf, Thorin and Tauriel to the revolting Great Goblin, vicious Azog and slimy Gollum, this official colouring book depicts The Hobbit movie trilogy's heroes and villains drawn from all corners of Middle-earth, with informative descriptions of every character and accurate pictures to colour.First published in 2017, this reissue of the only authorised Hobbit colouring book heralds the coming of a b

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Experience your favourite characters and enchanting scenes from one of the most famous fantasy worlds ever created Middle-earth in a brilliant new way with this official colouring book based on the epic The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson.The Lord of the Rings film trilogy brought J.R.R. Tolkien's incredible world of Middle-earth to life for millions of people. Now you can add your own artistic touches and explore this enchanted universe as never before.Embark on your own colouring adventure through Middle-earth, from the peaceful Hobbit holes of the Shire to the majestic realms of Rivendell and Minas Tirith, and join in the Fellowship's terrifying journey through the mines of Moria to the unforgettable landscape of Mount Doom.As well as breathtaking scenes from the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, you can colour your favourite heroes, including Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Frodo and Sam, the majestic Galadriel and the pitiful Gollum, and iconic creatures such

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A new edition of Tolkien’s famous illustrated Letters from Father Christmas to his children is presented in a stunning hardback format, complete with full colour illustrations. This classic festive book of Tolkien’s amazing Father Christmas letters written to his children between the 1920s and the 1940s has been reworked into a new hardback edition to match other beloved Tolkien titles. It contains high-quality digital reproductions of his beautiful letters and pictures. ‘My dear children, I am more shaky than usual this year. The North Polar Bear’s fault. It was the biggest bang in the world, and the most monstrous firework there has ever been. It turned the North Pole black!’ Every December an envelope bearing a stamp from the North Pole would arrive for J.R.R. Tolkien’s children. Inside would be a letter in strange spidery handwriting and a beautiful coloured drawing or some sketches. The letters were from Father Christmas. They told wonderful tales of life at the North Pole:• How all the reindeer got loose and scattered presents all over the place• How the accident-prone Polar Bear climbed the North Pole and fell through the roof of Father Christmas’s house into the dining-room• How he broke the Moon into four pieces and made the Man in it fall into the back garden• How there were wars with the troublesome horde of goblins who lived in the caves beneath the house! Sometimes the Polar Bear would scrawl a note, and sometimes Ilbereth the Elf would write in his elegant flowing script, adding yet more life and humour to the stories. From the first note to Tolkien’s eldest son in 1920 to the final poignant letter to his daughter in 1943, this book collects all the remarkable letters and pictures in one enchanting edition. No reader, young or old, can fail to be charmed by the inventiveness of Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas.

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De luxe boxed gift set of Tolkien's most popular and charming tales; full of wit and humour, giants, dragons, magic and more, they are collected together for the first time and will delight readers of all ages.Farmer Giles did not look like a hero. He was fat and red-bearded and enjoyed a slow, comfortable life. Then one day a rather deaf and short-sighted giant blundered on to his landThe Adventures of Tom Bombadil collects hobbit-verses from the Red Book' and other poems relating legends and jests of the Shire at the end of the Third Age.Smith of Wootton Major tells of the preparation of the Great Cake to mark the Feast of Good Children and the magical events which follow.Roverandom is a real dog who is magically transformed into a toy and is forced to seek out the wizard who wronged him in order to be returned to normal. The story was written to console Tolkien''s four-year-old son, Michael, who lost a beloved toy dog on the beach.

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Deluxe boxed gift set of pocket edition hardbacks featuring J.R.R. Tolkien's most popular works, which together tell the tale of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and of the War of the Ring.When they were first published, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings became instant classics. Treasured by readers young and old, these works of sweeping fantasy, steeped in unrivalled magic and otherworldliness have sold more than 150 million copies around the world.This new boxed set, published to mark the 80th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit, offers readers a new opportunity to discover Tolkien's remarkable world of Middle-earth and to follow the complete story of Bilbo Baggins and the Hobbits' part in the epic quest for the Ring beginning with Bilbo's fateful visit from Gandalf and culminating in the dramatic climax between Frodo and Gollum atop Mount Doom and Bilbo's departure to the Grey Havens.

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This special 50th anniversary hardback edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic masterpiece includes the complete revised and reset text, two-fold out maps printed in red and black and, unique to this edition, a full-colour fold-out reproduction of Tolkien’s own facsimile pages from the Book of Mazarbul that the Fellowship discover in Moria. Since it was first published in 1954, The Lord of the Rings has been a book people have treasured. Steeped in unrivalled magic and otherworldliness, its sweeping fantasy and epic adventure has touched the hearts of young and old alike. Over 100 million copies of its many editions have been sold around the world, and occasional collectors’ editions become prized and valuable items of publishing. This one-volume hardback edition contains the complete text, fully corrected and reset, and features for the very first time the pages from the Book of Mazarbul, illustrations done by Tolkien and intended for inclusion in the famous ‘Bridge of Khazad-dum’ chapter. Also appearing are previously unpublished family trees and two, full-size fold-out maps. Sympathetically packaged to reflect the classic look of the original, this revised edition of the bestselling hardback will prove irresistible to collectors and new fans alike.

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Begin your journey into Middle-earth. A New Legend Begins on Prime Video, in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The third part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic adventure THE LORD OF THE RINGS. The Dark Lord has risen, and as he unleashes hordes of Orcs to conquer all Middle-earth, Frodo and Sam struggle deep into his realm in Mordor. To defeat Sauron, the One Ring must be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. But the way is impossibly hard, and Frodo is weakening. The Ring corrupts all who bear it and Frodo’s time is running out. Will Sam and Frodo succeed, or will the Dark Lord rule Middle-earth once more?

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This deluxe slipcased edition of The Hobbit, printed and bound using superior materials including a silk ribbon marker, features the definitive text, plus Tolkien’s paintings and drawings in full colour, and a special fold-out version of Thror’s Map. Bilbo Baggins enjoys a quiet and contented life, with no desire to travel far from the comforts of home; then one day the wizard Gandalf and a band of dwarves arrive unexpectedly and enlist his services – as a burglar – on a dangerous expedition to raid the treasure-hoard of Smaug the dragon. Bilbo’s life is never to be the same again. Seldom has any book been so widely read and loved as J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic tale, The Hobbit. Since its first publication in 1937 it has remained in print to delight each new generation of readers all over the world, and its hero, Bilbo Baggins, has taken his place among the ranks of the immortals: Alice, Pooh, Toad…

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The definitive edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s most beloved book, sporting a facsimile of his original cover design and complete with colour plates of his own paintings, brand new reproductions of all his drawings, and colour versions of both maps. Bilbo Baggins enjoys a quiet and contented life, with no desire to travel far from the comforts of home; then one day the wizard Gandalf and a band of dwarves arrive unexpectedly and enlist his services – as a burglar – on a dangerous expedition to raid the treasure-hoard of Smaug the dragon. Bilbo’s life is never to be the same again. Seldom has any book been so widely read and loved as JRR Tolkien’s classic tale, The Hobbit. Since its first publication in 1937 it has remained in print to delight each new generation of readers all over the world, and its hero, Bilbo Baggins, has taken his place among the ranks of the immortals: Alice, Pooh, Toad…

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Concluding the story begun in The Hobbit, this is the final part of Tolkien’s epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. Featuring a striking black cover based on Tolkien’s own design, the definitive text, and a detailed map of Middle-earth. The armies of the Dark Lord are massing as his evil shadow spreads ever wider. Men, Dwarves, Elves and Ents unite forces to do battle agains the Dark. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam struggle further into Mordor in their heroic quest to destroy the One Ring. Impossible to describe in a few words, JRR Tolkien’s great work of imaginative fiction has been labelled both a heroic romance and a classic fantasy fiction. By turns comic and homely, epic and diabolic, the narrative moves through countless changes of scene and character in an imaginary world which is totally convincing in its detail. Tolkien created a vast new mythology in an invented world which has proved timeless in its appeal.

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Repackaged to feature Tolkien’s own painting of the Tree of Amalion, this collection includes his famous essay, ‘On Fairy-stories’ and the story that exemplifies this, ‘Leaf by Niggle’, together with the poem ‘Mythopoeia’ and the verse drama, ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth’, which tells of the events following the disastrous Battle of Maldon. Fairy-stories are not just for children, as anyone who has read Tolkien will know. In his essay ‘On Fairy-Stories’, Tolkien discusses the nature of fairy-tales and fantasy and rescues the genre from those who would relegate it to juvenilia. The haunting short story, ‘Leaf by Niggle’, recounts the story of the artist, Niggle, who has ‘a long journey to make’ and is seen as an allegory of Tolkien’s life. The poem ‘Mythopoeia’ relates an argument between two unforgettable characters as they discuss the making of myths. Lastly, and published for the very first time, we are treated to the translation of Tolkien’s account of the Battle of Maldon, known as ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth’. Tree and Leaf is an eclectic, amusing, provocative and entertaining collection of works which reveals the diversity of J.R.R. Tolkien’s imagination, the depth of his knowledge of English history, and the breadth of his talent as a creator of fantastic fiction.

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Deluxe collector’s edition featuring the first edition text and containing a facsimile page of Tolkien’s original manuscript. The book is quarterbound with a gold motif stamped on the front board and is presented in a matching slipcase. The Fall of Arthur, the only venture by J.R.R. Tolkien into the legends of Arthur King of Britain, may well be regarded as his finest and most skilful achievement in the use of the Old English alliterative metre, in which he brought to his transforming perceptions of the old narratives a pervasive sense of the grave and fateful nature of all that is told: of Arthur’s expedition overseas into distant heathen lands, of Guinevere’s flight from Camelot, of the great sea-battle on Arthur’s return to Britain, in the portrait of the traitor Mordred, in the tormented doubts of Lancelot in his French castle. Unhappily, The Fall of Arthur was one of several long narrative poems that he abandoned in that period. In this case he evidently began it in the earlier nineteen-thirties, and it was sufficiently advanced for him to send it to a very perceptive friend who read it with great enthusiasm at the end of 1934 and urgently pressed him ‘You simply must finish it!’ But in vain: he abandoned it, at some date unknown, though there is some evidence that it may have been in 1937, the year of the publication of The Hobbit and the first stirrings of The Lord of the Rings. Years later, in a letter of 1955, he said that ‘he hoped to finish a long poem on The Fall of Arthur’; but that day never came. Associated with the text of the poem, however, are many manuscript pages: a great quantity of drafting and experimentation in verse, in which the strange evolution of the poem’s structure is revealed, together with narrative synopses and very significant if tantalising notes. In these latter can be discerned clear if mysterious associations of the Arthurian conclusion with The Silmarillion, and the bitter ending of the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, which was never written.

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A brand new revised edition of the best-selling graphic novel based on the enchanting prelude to The Lord of the Rings. First published in 1990, David Wenzel’s comic book adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit was an immediate success and has become one of the best-loved graphic novels of the last 25 years. The Hobbit is the story of Bilbo Baggins, a quiet and contented hobbit whose life is turned upside down when he joins the wizard Gandalf and thirteen dwarves on their quest to reclaim their stolen treasure. It is a journey fraught with danger – and in the end it is Bilbo alone who must face the guardian of this treasure, the most-dreaded dragon, Smaug. Illustrated and hand painted in full colour throughout, and accompanied by the carefully abridged text of the original novel, this handsome authorised edition will introduce new generations to a magical masterpiece – and be treasured by Hobbit fans of all ages, everywhere. This new edition has been completely re-scanned from the original paintings to achieve more accurate and vibrant colours, with David Wenzel revisiting the work to provide sensitive improvements and additions to the original edition. The book includes a magnificent and completely new cover design by Wenzel himself.

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The second part of The History of The Lord of the Rings, an enthralling account of the writing of the Book of the Century which contains many additional scenes and includes the unpublished Epilogue in its entirety. The Treason of Isengard continues the account of the creation of The Lord of the Rings started in the earlier volume, The Return of the Shadow. It races the great expansion of the tale into new lands and peoples south and east of the Misty Mountains: the emerence of Lothlorien, of Ents, of the Riders of Rohan, and of Saruman the White in the fortress of Isengard. In brief outlines and pencilled drafts dashed down on scraps of paper are seen the first entry of Galadriel, the earliest ideas of the history of Gondor, and the original meeting of Aragorn and Eowyn, its significance destined to be wholly transformed. The book also contains a full account of the original map which was to be the basis of the emerging geography of Middle-earth. This series of fascinating books has now been repackaged to complement the distinctive and classic style of the ‘black cover’ A-format paperbacks of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

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First ever standalone edition of one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s most important poetic dramas, that explores timely themes such as the nature of heroism and chivalry during war, and which features unpublished and never-before-seen texts and drafts. In 991 AD, vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defence-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of tenth-century England, due to it being immortalised in the poem, The Battle of Maldon. Written shortly after the battle, the poem now survives only as a 325-line fragment, but its value to today is incalculable, not just as an heroic tale but in vividly expressing the lost language of our ancestors and celebrating ideals of loyalty and friendship. J.R.R. Tolkien considered The Battle of Maldon ‘the last surviving fragment of ancient English heroic minstrelsy’. It would inspire him to compose, during the 1930s, his own dramatic verse-dialogue, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son, which imagines the aftermath of the great battle when two of Beorhtnoth’s retainers come to retrieve their duke’s body. Leading Tolkien scholar, Peter Grybauskas, presents for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien’s own prose translation of The Battle of Maldon together with the definitive treatment of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth and its accompanying essays; also included and never before published is Tolkien’s bravura lecture, ‘The Tradition of Versification in Old English’, a wide-ranging essay on the nature of poetic tradition. Illuminated with insightful notes and commentary, he has produced a definitive critical edition of these works, and argues compellingly that, Beowulf excepted, The Battle of Maldon may well have been ‘the Old English poem that most influenced Tolkien’s fiction’, most dramatically within the pages of The Lord of the Rings.

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Painstakingly restored from Tolkien’s manuscripts and presented for the first time as a fully continuous and standalone story, this paperback of the epic tale of The Children of Húrin will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves, dragons, Dwarves and Orcs, and the rich landscape and characters unique to Tolkien. It is a legendary time long before The Lord of the Rings, and Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwells in the vast fortress of Angband in the North; and within the shadow of the fear of Angband, and the war waged by Morgoth against the Elves, the fates of Túrin and his sister Niënor will be tragically entwined. Their brief and passionate lives are dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bears them as the children of Húrin, the man who dared to defy him to his face. Against them Morgoth sends his most formidable servant, Glaurung, a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire, in an attempt to fulfil the curse of Morgoth, and destroy the children of Húrin. Begun by J.R.R. Tolkien at the end of the First World War, The Children of Húrin became the dominant story in his later work on Middle-earth. But he could not bring it to a final and finished form. In this book Christopher Tolkien has constructed, after long study of the manuscripts, a coherent narrative without any editorial invention.

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The translation of Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien was an early work, very distinctive in its mode, completed in 1926: he returned to it later to make hasty corrections, but seems never to have considered its publication. This edition is twofold, for there exists an illuminating commentary on the text of the poem by the translator himself, in the written form of a series of lectures given at Oxford in the 1930s; and from these lectures a substantial selection has been made, to form also a commentary on the translation in this book. From his creative attention to detail in these lectures there arises a sense of the immediacy and clarity of his vision. It is as if he entered into the imagined past: standing beside Beowulf and his men shaking out their mail-shirts as they beached their ship on the coast of Denmark, listening to the rising anger of Beowulf at the taunting of Unferth, or looking up in amazement at Grendel’s terrible hand set under the roof of Heorot. But the commentary in this book includes also much from those lectures in which, while always anchored in the text, he expressed his wider perceptions. He looks closely at the dragon that would slay Beowulf ‘snuffling in baffled rage and injured greed when he discovers the theft of the cup’; but he rebuts the notion that this is ‘a mere treasure story’, ‘just another dragon tale’. He turns to the lines that tell of the burying of the golden things long ago, and observes that it is ‘the feeling for the treasure itself, this sad history’ that raises it to another level. ‘The whole thing is sombre, tragic, sinister, curiously real. The “treasure” is not just some lucky wealth that will enable the finder to have a good time, or marry the princess. It is laden with history, leading back into the dark heathen ages beyond the memory of song, but not beyond the reach of imagination.’ Sellic Spell, a ‘marvellous tale’, is a story written by Tolkien suggesting what might have been the form and style of an Old English folk-tale of Beowulf, in which there was no association with the ‘historical legends’ of the Northern kingdoms.

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The world first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the extraordinary story of the final days of England’s legendary hero, King Arthur. The Fall of Arthur, the only venture by J.R.R. Tolkien into the legends of Arthur King of Britain, may well be regarded as his finest and most skilful achievement in the use of the Old English alliterative metre, in which he brought to his transforming perceptions of the old narratives a pervasive sense of the grave and fateful nature of all that is told: of Arthur’s expedition overseas into distant heathen lands, of Guinevere’s flight from Camelot, of the great sea-battle on Arthur’s return to Britain, in the portrait of the traitor Mordred, in the tormented doubts of Lancelot in his French castle. Unhappily, The Fall of Arthur was one of several long narrative poems that he abandoned in that period. In this case he evidently began it in the earlier nineteen-thirties, and it was sufficiently advanced for him to send it to a very perceptive friend who read it with great enthusiasm at the end of 1934 and urgently pressed him ‘You simply must finish it!’ But in vain: he abandoned it, at some date unknown, though there is some evidence that it may have been in 1937, the year of the publication of The Hobbit and the first stirrings of The Lord of the Rings. Years later, in a letter of 1955, he said that ‘he hoped to finish a long poem on The Fall of Arthur’; but that day never came. Associated with the text of the poem, however, are many manuscript pages: a great quantity of drafting and experimentation in verse, in which the strange evolution of the poem’s structure is revealed, together with narrative synopses and very significant if tantalising notes. In these latter can be discerned clear if mysterious associations of the Arthurian conclusion with The Silmarillion, and the bitter ending of the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, which was never written.

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The final part of The History of The Lord of the Rings, an enthralling account of the writing of the Book of the Century which contains many additional scenes and includes the unpublished Epilogue in its entirety. In the first section of Sauron Defeated Christopher Tolkien completes his fascinating study of The Lord of the Rings. Beginning with Sam’s rescue of Frodo from the Tower of Cirith Ungol, and giving a very different account of the Scouring of the Shire, this section ends with versions of the hitherto unpublished Epilogue, in which, years after the departure of Bilbo and Frodo from the Grey Havens, Sam attempts to answer his children’s questions. The second section is an edition of The Notion Club Papers. These mysterious papers, discovered in the early years of the twenty-first century, report the discussions of an Oxford club in the years 1986-7, in which after a number of topics, the centre of interest turns to the legend of Atlantis, the strange communications received by other members of the club from the past, and the violent irruption of the legend into the North-west of Europe. This series of fascinating books has now been repackaged to complement the distinctive and classic style of the ‘black cover’ A-format paperbacks of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

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The fifth volume of the History of Middle-earth, containing the early myths and legends which led to the writing of Tolkien’s epic tale of war, The Silmarillion. At the end of 1937, J R R Tolkien reluctantly set aside his work on the myths and heroic legends of Valinor and Middle-earth and began The Lord of the Rings.This fifth volume of The History of Middle-earth completes the examination of his writing up to that time. Later forms of The Annals of Valinor and The Annals of Beleriand had been composed, The Silmarillion was nearing completion in a greatly amplified form, and a new Map had been made. The legend of the Downfall of Numenor had entered the work, including those central ideas: the World Made Round and the Straight Path into the vanished West. Closely associated with this was the abandoned ‘time-travel’ story The Lost Road, linking the world of Numenor and Middle-earth with the legends of many other times and peoples. Also included in this volume is the The Lhammas, as essay on the complex languages and dialects of Middle-earth, and an ‘etymological dictionary’ containing an extensive account of Elvish vocabularies.

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The fourth volume that contains the early myths and legends which led to the writing of Tolkien’s epic tale of war, The Silmarillion. In this fourth volume of The History of Middle-earth, the shaping of the chronological and geographical structure of the legends of Middle-earth and Valinor is spread before us.We are introduced to the hitherto unknown Ambarkanta or “Shape of the World”, the only account ever given of the nature of the imagined Universe, ccompanied by maps and diagrams of the world before and after the cataclyusms of The War of the Gods and the Downfall of Numenor. The first map of Beleriend is also reproduced and discussed.In The Annals of Valinor and The Annals of Beleriend we are shown how the chronology of the First Age was moulded: and the tale is told of Aelfwine, the Englishman who voyaged into the True West and came to Tol Eressea, Lonely Isle, where he learned the ancient history of Elves and Men.Also included are the original ‘Silmarillion’ of 1926, and the Quenta Noldorinwa of 1930 – the only version of the myths and legends of the First Age that J R R Tolkien completed to their end.

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Collector’s slipcased edition of the first ever standalone presentation of one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s most important poetic dramas, that explores timely themes such as the nature of heroism and chivalry during war, and which features unpublished and never-before-seen texts and drafts. In 991 AD, vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defence-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of tenth-century England, and is immortalised in the poem, The Battle of Maldon. Written shortly after the battle, the poem survives only as a 325-line fragment, but its value to today is incalculable. J.R.R. Tolkien considered The Battle of Maldon ‘the last surviving fragment of ancient English heroic minstrelsy’. It would inspire him to compose, during the 1930s, his own dramatic verse-dialogue, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son, which imagines the aftermath of the great battle when two of Beorhtnoth’s retainers come to retrieve their duke’s body. Leading Tolkien scholar, Peter Grybauskas, presents for the first time Tolkien’s own prose translation of The Battle of Maldon together with the definitive treatment of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth and its accompanying essays; also included and never before published is the lecture, ‘The Tradition of Versification in Old English’. Illuminated with insightful notes and commentary, he offers a definitive critical edition of these works, and argues compellingly that, Beowulf excepted, The Battle of Maldon may well have been ‘the Old English poem that most influenced Tolkien’s fiction’, most dramatically within the pages of The Lord of the Rings. This slipcased edition includes a colour frontispiece reproducing a page of Tolkien’s original manuscript of The Homecoming, and is printed on acid-free paper with a ribbon marker. It is quarterbound with a unique illustration by Bill Sanderson gold-foiled on grey boards and is housed in a custom-built slipcase. It also includes a digitally remastered recording of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth read by J.R.R. Tolkien & Christopher Tolkien, which is available on CD for the first time.

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This smart new paperback edition contains the fully-reset text of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour. It features a beautifully decorated text and includes as a bonus the complete version of Tolkien’s acclaimed lecture on Sir Gawain. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl are two poems by an unknown author written in about 1400. Sir Gawain is a romance, a fairy-tale for adults, full of life and colour; but it is also much more than this, being at the same time a powerful moral tale which examines religious and social values. Pearl is apparently an elegy on the death of a child, a poem pervaded with a sense of great personal loss: but, like Gawain it is also a sophisticated and moving debate on much less tangible matters. Sir Orfeo is a slighter romance, belonging to an earlier and different tradition. It was a special favourite of Tolkien’s. The three translations represent the complete rhyme and alliterative schemes of the originals, and are uniquely accompanied with the complete text of Tolkien’s acclaimed 1953 W.P. Ker Memorial Lecture that he delivered on Sir Gawain.

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Complete integrated indices of History of Middle-earth volumes to complement new series. For the first time every index from each of the twelve volumes of The History Of Middle-earth has been published together in a single volume – to create a supreme index charting the writing of Tolkien’s masterpieces The Lord of The Rings and The Silmarillion. This stunning work of reference complements the fascinating History of Middle-earth series, now repackaged to complement the distinctive and classic style of the ‘black cover’ A-format paperbacks of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

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First ever publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s final writings on Middle-earth, covering a wide range of subjects and perfect for those who have read and enjoyed The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings, Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-earth, and want to learn more about Tolkien’s magnificent world. It is well known that J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937 and The Lord of the Rings in 1954–5. What may be less known is that he continued to write about Middle-earth in the decades that followed, right up until the years before his death in 1973. For him, Middle-earth was part of an entire world to be explored, and the writings in The Nature of Middle-earth reveal the journeys that he took as he sought to better understand his unique creation. From sweeping themes as complex and profound as the metaphysics of Elvish immortality and reincarnation, and the Powers of the Valar, to the more earth-bound subjects of the lands and beasts of Númenor, the geography of the Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor, and even who had beards! This new collection, which has been edited by Carl F Hostetter, one of the world’s leading Tolkien experts, is a veritable treasure-trove offering readers a chance to peer over Professor Tolkien’s shoulder at the very moment of discovery: and on every page, Middle-earth is once again brought to extraordinary life.

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This de luxe collector’s edition includes the first edition text and features an exclusive colour frontispiece illustration on a fold-out sheet. The book is quarterbound, with a specially commissioned motif stamped in three foils on the front board, and is presented in a matching slipcase. The five tales are written with the same skill, quality and charm that made The Hobbit a classic. Largely overlooked because of their short lengths, they are finally together in a volume which reaffirms Tolkien's place as a master storyteller for readers young and old. Roverandom is a toy dog who, enchanted by a sand sorcerer, gets to explore the world and encounter strange and fabulous creatures. Farmer Giles of Ham is fat and unheroic, but – having unwittingly managed to scare off a short-sighted giant – is called upon to do battle when a dragon comes to town; The Adventures of Tom Bombadil tells in verse of Tom's many adventures with hobbits, princesses, dwarves and trolls; Leaf by Niggle recounts the strange adventures of the painter Niggle who sets out to paint the perfect tree; Smith of Wootton Major journeys to the Land of Faery thanks to the magical ingredients of the Great Cake of the Feast of Good Children. This new collection is fully illustrated throughout by Oscar-winning artist, Alan Lee, who provides a wealth of pencil drawings to bring the stories to life as he did so memorably for The Hobbit and The Children of Húrin. Alan also provides an Afterword, in which he opens the door into illustrating Tolkien's world. Taken together, this rich collection of tales from the author of The Children of Húrin will provide the reader with a fascinating journey into lands as wild and strange as Middle-earth.

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A great modern classic and the prelude to The Lord of the Rings. Smaug certainly looked fast asleep, almost dead and dark, with scarcely a snore more than a whiff of unseen steam, when Bilbo peeped once more from the entrance. He was just about to step out on to the floor when he caught a sudden thin and piercing ray of red from under the drooping lid of Smaug’s left eye. He was only pretending to sleep! He was watching the tunnel entrance! Whisked away from his comfortable, unambitious life in his hobbit-hole in Bag End by Gandalf the wizard and a band of dwarves, Bilbo Baggins finds himself caught up in a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Although quite reluctant to take part in this quest, Bilbo surprises even himself by his resourcefulness and his skill as a burglar! The text of this edition has been fully corrected and revised in collaboration with Christopher Tolkien and is accompanied by a wealth of beautiful watercolour paintings and delicate pencil drawings from Alan Lee.

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Read the classic edition of Bilbo Baggins’ adventures in Middle-earth. Featuring more than 60 colour paintings and pencil drawings by the award-winning artist, Alan Lee, Conceptual Designer on Peter Jackson’s THE HOBBIT trilogy. Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an unexpected journey ‘there and back again’. They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon… The prelude to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit has sold many millions of copies since its publication in 1937, establishing itself as one of the most beloved and influential books of the twentieth century. It is now available in a smart new package, and is illustrated throughout in gorgeous watercolour and delicate pencil by Alan Lee, Conceptual Artist for Peter Jackson’s films, THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY and THE HOBBIT: THERE AND BACK AGAIN.

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The first of two companion volumes which documents the later writing of The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s epic tale of war. After The Lord of the Rings was at last achieved, J R R Tolkien turned his attention once again to ‘the Matter of the Elder Days’. The text of the Annals of Aman, the ‘Blessed Land’ in the far West, is given in full; while in writings hitherto unknown is seen the nature of the problems that Tolkien explored in his later years, as new and radical ideas, portending upheaval in the old narratives, emerged at the heart of the mythology, and as the destinies of Men and Elves, mortals and immortals, became of central significance, together with a vastly enlarged perception of the evil of Melkor, the Shadow upon Arda. The second part of this history of the later Silmarillion is concerned with developments in the legends of Beleriand after the completion of The Lord of the Rings.

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The world first publication of a previously unknown work of fantasy by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the powerful story of a doomed young man who is sold into slavery and who swears revenge on the magician who killed his father. Kullervo son of Kalervo is perhaps the darkest and most tragic of all J.R.R. Tolkien’s characters. ‘Hapless Kullervo’, as Tolkien called him, is a luckless orphan boy with supernatural powers and a tragic destiny. Brought up in the homestead of the dark magician Untamo, who killed his father, kidnapped his mother, and who tries three times to kill him when still a boy, Kullervo is alone save for the love of his twin sister, Wanona, and guarded by the magical powers of the black dog, Musti. When Kullervo is sold into slavery he swears revenge on the magician, but he will learn that even at the point of vengeance there is no escape from the cruellest of fates. Tolkien wrote that The Story of Kullervo was ‘the germ of my attempt to write legends of my own’, and was ‘a major matter in the legends of the First Age’; his Kullervo was the ancestor of Túrin Turambar, tragic incestuous hero of The Silmarillion. In addition to being a powerful story in its own right, The Story of Kullervo – published here for the first time with the author’s drafts, notes and lecture-essays on its source-work, The Kalevala, is a foundation stone in the structure of Tolkien’s invented world.

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Fascinating for Latin learners and for Tolkien fans of all ages, The Hobbit has been translated into Latin for the first time since its publication 75 years ago. In foramine terrae habitabat hobbitus. (‘In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.’) The Hobbit, is one of the world’s most popular classic stories, appealing to adults as much as to the children for whom J.R.R. Tolkien first wrote the book. Translated worldwide into more than 60 modern languages, now Hobbitus Ille is finally published in Latin, and will be of interest to all those who are studying the language, whether at school or at a higher level. In the great tradition of publishing famous children’s books in Latin, professional classicist and lifelong Tolkien fan Mark Walker provides a deft translation of the entire book. His attention to detail, including the transformation of Tolkien’s songs and verses into classical Latin metres, will fascinate and entertain readers of all ability, even those with only a minimal acquaintance with the language.

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The world first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the epic story of the Norse hero, Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, the revenge of his wife, Gudrún, and the Fall of the Nibelungs. In the Lay of the Völsungs is told the ancestry of the great hero Sigurd, the slayer of Fáfnir most celebrated of dragons, whose treasure he took for his own; of his awakening of the Valkyrie Brynhild who slept surrounded by a wall of fire, and of their betrothal; and of his coming to the court of the great princes who were named the Niflungs (or Nibelungs), with whom he entered into blood-brotherhood. In that court there sprang great love but also great hate, brought about by the power of the enchantress, mother of the Niflungs, skilled in the arts of magic, of shape-changing and potions of forgetfulness. In scenes of dramatic intensity, of confusion of identity, thwarted passion, jealousy and bitter strife, the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, of Gunnar the Niflung and Gudrún his sister, mounts to its end in the murder of Sigurd at the hands of his blood-brothers, the suicide of Brynhild, and the despair of Gudrún. In the Lay of Gudrún her fate after the death of Sigurd is told, her marriage against her will to the mighty Atli, ruler of the Huns (the Attila of history), his murder of her brothers the Niflung lords, and her hideous revenge.

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This is the definitive collection of Tolkien’s five acclaimed modern classic ‘fairie’ tales in the vein of The Hobbit, fully corrected and reset for this edition and all beautifully illustrated in pencil by the award-winning artist, Alan Lee. The five tales are written with the same skill, quality and charm that made The Hobbit a classic. Largely overlooked because of their short lengths, they are finally together in a volume which reaffirms Tolkien's place as a master storyteller for readers young and old. Roverandom is a toy dog who, enchanted by a sand sorcerer, gets to explore the world and encounter strange and fabulous creatures. Farmer Giles of Ham is fat and unheroic, but – having unwittingly managed to scare off a short-sighted giant – is called upon to do battle when a dragon comes to town; The Adventures of Tom Bombadil tells in verse of Tom's many adventures with hobbits, princesses, dwarves and trolls; Leaf by Niggle recounts the strange adventures of the painter Niggle who sets out to paint the perfect tree; Smith of Wootton Major journeys to the Land of Faery thanks to the magical ingredients of the Great Cake of the Feast of Good Children. This new collection is fully illustrated throughout by Oscar-winning artist, Alan Lee, who provides a wealth of pencil drawings to bring the stories to life as he did so memorably for The Hobbit and The Children of Húrin. Alan also provides an Afterword, in which he opens the door into illustrating Tolkien's world. Taken together, this rich collection of tales from the author of The Children of Húrin will provide the reader with a fascinating journey into lands as wild and strange as Middle-earth.

Read more less