The Lord of The Rings

When I pre-ordered this copy of Lord of the Rings, I literally asked myself whether I needed another copy. After all, the fantastic Hobbit & Lord of the Rings illustrated box-set is fantastic and is literally all I'll ever need in a fine box. However, I am a right sucker for leather bound books and this one is a right beauty. I bit my tongue and made an impulse buy. £108 later and I've got possibly the finest Tolkien book I've ever seen. Everyone at this point knows the Hobbits tale. The one about that shiny gold ring that contains some life essence of the great dark evil Sauron. He needs the ring to retain his physical form and return to his former strength. The little guy (with their friends) go on a lengthy journey to rid Middle Earth of this evil by tossing this one ring into the fiery hell it was forged in. It's one of the finest books ever conceived and was adapted into a fantastic trilogy of movies by Peter Jackson. It's extremely influential and you'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't know about it. I would think with that, it would be safe to assume that most people who are buying this lovely expensive copy have already read the book and own a copy (or a few). There's been some nice versions out there but none that quite matched this edition. It's a beautiful thick hard back book with a gorgeous leather spine. It has been printed in two colours on acid free paper, has gilt edging and the usual ribbon marker. It's housed in a lovely red hard back sleeve, with one of Tolkien's own designs on the front and a cardboard box covered in the original Middle Earth map. Inside the book, there are illustrations from Tolkien himself, thirty in total. There's a tonne of extras including some maps of Middle Earth and Mordor, a fantastic "Kings Letter" from the rejected epilogue for the book and some pages from the Book of Mazarbul. As a package, you can see why this is a little expensive. The quality of the pages are good. They're not thick like the illustrated collection but not thin enough that the pages appear transparent. The book isn't too heavy and the pages open up flat, which makes it perfect for this who enjoy reading for long periods of time. The extras features don't feel cheap and are great little things to put on display. I now have three big copies of this book and this quite easily the best. Sure, it did cost me an arm and a leg but this I believe is a copy that will do me until the day I die. It's made to be sturdy, to last and I can't wait to properly get stuck into it. This book is a must have for Tolkien fans who want that ONE copy. The previous illustrated editions are fantastic but this is just that one step higher. Check it out, you won't regret it!

Bought this new LOTR book to replace my 12 year old copy that meant missing. When the book arrived I was so incredibly happy at how beautiful the book looks. Well worth the money.

Great book and nice to have the whole story in 1 book rather than 3

Great Book

I admit I'm not a fan of how many new editions and formats of Tolkien's beloved magnum opus are released each year, with differently-coloured pages or certain parts added in. However, this one really is a beauty. I bought it as a gift for my mum - who already owns several copies of the Lord of the Rings on hardback - but she, like me, was taken aback by the beauty and grace of this thing. It's fit for an elven smith themself! It comes with two maps showcasing the wondrous world of Middle-earth, as well as several illustrations included inside, originally sketched by Tolkien's own hand. It's the complete version of this dense tome, and a beautiful one. It's as lovely to pour through as it is to read, which makes for one pretty stellar book. It's a little expensive - absolutely a luxury - but the quality of the print reflects this. The sprayed, Elven text pages are just opulent.

Having first read LotR in paperback in the early 1970s, I carried it around with me for years. When the cover fell off, I made a replacement. So, love the book. Also love Tolkien's art work. Naive in style but, for my money, perfectly capturing in paint the world he so lovingly creates in words. So this new edition featuring so many examples of the author's art was a no-brainer, almost a must-have. I'm assuming everyone by now has a pretty good idea of what the book is about, so this review focuses on the look and feel of this edition. First thing is, it's smaller than expected. This means, of course, that the illustrations are smaller than I would like, particularly given the amount of detail Tolkien puts into many of them. The quality of their reproduction makes up for it to some extent. Crisp and clear, colours good. The paper stock used is pretty good. Not too much show-through. Given the length of the book, paper heavy enough to eliminate show-through completely would make for a more cumbersome volume. The printing of the text is inconsistent, fine on most pages but over-inked on some, which doesn't look great but is at least still readable. At the price charged, I'd expected better. The binding seems pretty tight. A peculiar decision was to include the maps loose when they could easily have been bound into the book. They are not even in pockets, just loose, so they fall out all the time. The dust jacket could really do with being laminated. Being unlaminated, it's easily damaged. The cover underneath the jacket is very attractive, using Tolkien's own designs, the central emblem of which peeps out through a hole in the dust jacket. The book comes in a blue cardboard box printed in silver with the design of Moria's gate. All in all, while it's great to finally have Tolkien's original illustrations married with the text, the production of the book could be better, hence the dropped star.

I'd already read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, but wanted a new copy, since the old one was disintegrating, and came across this superb (2002/2014) edition, which as explained in the book itself, is complete and fully revised to adjust to the author's successive corrections and emends all previous editorial errors. Apart from the text itself the book includes six appendices, three alphabetical indexes and the usual maps of Middle-Earth. Top quality, and so far the definitive version!!

This box set is spectacular and will greatly appeal to the fans of the series like it did to me. This edition is very beautiful and comes with maps of middle earth and illustrations. Though it is on the pricier side, I don’t have any regrets about purchasing this!

I ended up getting the hardback edition with the red spine with imprinted text. Originally i was after an alan lee illustrated from having owned one in the early 2000's.. but at deep discount also considering the other options available in aug 22, ended up going for the latest at half off. Random info: - The cover turned out better than expected, i thought it would be worst quality basic cardboard, but it turned out to be textured cardboard? that looks and feels like the coarse fabric type? Its not like the 50th anniversary edition from looking at youtube sample reviews, its something else. - The red printing is amazing and adds more than expected to the book. As well as large chapter titles, its on every page, the header title and page number also being printed in red. Its very attractive. - From skimming through it, i've barely noticed tolkiens illustrations, they must be in there somewhere. Which is in contrast to alan lees art when included.. they literally stop the book in its tracks with their presence. So at a discount, you won't be disappointed with the standard black and red hardback. At full price 90aud, there's a few more options available... i would probably track down a 60th anniversary with alan lee art for that price, and i think that edition is physically a bit bigger too. Happy!

Two points to clarify about the most popular single-volume LOTR editions: 1) The 1991 single-volume Alan Lee-illustrated edition is the "centenary" edition, commemorating Tolkien's 100th birthday (cf. "centenarian") . The "centennial" edition won't be published until 2054, which will be the 100th anniversary of the original publication of Lord of the Rings. This is a very well designed and well printed/bound edition, built to last and beatufil. Its only fault is the absence of fold-out maps (it has the black and white maps printed in sections, often seen in paperback editions). 2) The reason for the broken type in the 1974 red leatherette "Collector's Edition" (and the occurrences of this number on the order of 1 or 2 characters on every 50th page or so) is more likely that the source text from which the negatives/plates were made and this edition printed was itself flawed and originally was some form of letterpress metal type, probably Monotype [a more 'modern' version of the old LinoType system], though depending on the date of that setting [up to mid-'60s, or even later] it may have been hand-composed. All metal type gets re-used, and becomes worn and some of it cracked/chipped over time. There were many books reprinted in this way through the early '80s (and a few publishers, such as Lindsay Books, of long out-of-print, mostly public-domain or 'gray rights' titles, still do this). The problem is unlikely to have been caused by faults in photo-typesetting strips or process-camera negs in 1973 or so (when this LOTR Collector's Edition was first printed) since that process was a fully mature, climax technology by then, and quality control was simply outstanding (this was due to that extinct beast, the unionized master-printer, especially at Houghton Mifflin, a publisher with a very large academic textbook list, and an industry reputation for quality production; just look at any ten trade hardbacks circa 1973 and earlier, and compare any element of quality to any ten current titles and it's clear the the technology and practice of printing and book binding peaked long ago, and nothing of newer technology, especially computer technology has served the interest of producing better made books, quite the opposite. 2007 tech only makes it faster and cheaper, nothing else. Remember also that it was the Allen & Unwin type-compositors who introduced virtually all the spelling and diction errors in both the 1st and 2nd editions, some of which have only finally been fixed in the 2004-05 50th Anniversary edition; and these were errors mostly such as 'dwarves' being "corrected" to 'dwarfs', 'elven' to 'elfin', and many others, primarily linguistic, along those lines; these would have been proper corrections with any author other than Tolkien, of course.) As for the notion that photo-reproduction is at all like printing a Word document on a laser printer, then scanning it back into a computer as a JPEG or GIF image file, and finally printing it again, that is a facile and plainly inaccurate comparison. In short, unless one starts with a bitmap or similar low quality computer 'font', prints on low-brightness (<70) recycled paper via a cheap ink-jet printer, scans using a 75-by-75 dpi setting via low-end scanning hardware and software, and repeats printing as above, the result will certainly be nothing so poor as Jeff Sun describes in his review. Photo-reproduction via PC and peripherals or via process-camera, strips, and offset printing, can easily and does commonly achieve excellent results, provided the equipment is of first quality and the operator is skilled. If anyone is obsessed enough to try this (as I clearly am), one fairly reliable way to tell whether a book is printed (at some stage) from some form of metal type is to use at least a 20x loupe and examine the vertical straight edges (particularly of upper N's, T's, L's, and E's) for irregularity. Metal type degrades in miniscule degrees after the first few hundred impressions, and will show this by cracking/splitting/chipping/warbling/bending and otherwise appearing NOT straight, sharp, and crisp (especially machine-set monotype/linotype which was all lead/tin, since it was melted down repeatedly; hand-set type has antimony and sometimes manganese in it, which makes it much harder to start and also casts more sharply; parts of letters break off but usually don't deform). It's a challenge to tell these apart, since photo-reproduction of letterpress can be hard to distinguish from original letterpress printing, if the latter is done by a highly skilled compositor and press operator. Some letterpress books show the impression of the type on the page, like a light embossing, from the force of the type striking the stock. Really good printing avoids this. So, if you have a book without this feature that does show feathering, breaks, waviness, etc. it may be either letterpress or photo-repro of LP, but if these traits are present it is almost certain metal type was used at some point in the life of the typesetting. Two caveats to even to this: feathering alone does not definitely mean deformed metal type. Feathering,, or little veins and stream-like projects away from the character is often caused by excessive inking and watery ink, and also by cheap papers that are unsized (meaning a starch like substance is added during the paper's manufacture to prevent feathering and bleedthrough; newsprint is unsized and you can see how feathering works buy lightly touching a fountain pen to a piece of it for a minute or so). The other caveat is that some computer fonts, especially some high end ones for MAC typesetting systems, have been photographically captured/reproduced from books printed mostly before 1800, and their designers often deliberately retain some of the source type's imperfections (which are due mostly to the more primitive metallurgy of that era) to achieve a particular design effect. You might be surprised how much theory and psychology underlies type-design and typography; there is a lot. Need a dissertation topic? This has become, I see now, a rant, and a really long one. First as a reader, then as a writer, then as apprentice in a letterpress print shop and bindery, I've always held the book as art-object or craft-work in very nearly as high esteem as the words contained within. I do think these issues are worth some ink, and I expect (or hope) that those interested in fine editions such as this so-called "Collector's " (Ugh! I so hate that term, it's like "deluxe" or "premier" and is mildly patronizing to the reader/buyer) edition of LOTR might also find at least some of the above ramble of interest and use. I do regard this red leatherette slipcased edition (ISBN 0-39-519395-8) as my favorite. It was this edition in which I first read LOTR, and though the Centenary hardcover and the HC 50th Anniversary editions (slipcased US and UK, different designs, both excellent) are on the whole and in most particulars better printed and bound, this edition is a nostalgia item for me. I also very much like the red binding, evocative as it is of the "Red Book of Westmarch," the foil-stamping on the spine, of the White Tree of Gondor, (which must be by either Pauline Baynes or by Tolkien himself) is a delight, and the two color printing, in spite of the ocassional bad character and slightly inconsistent inking, makes me feel like I'm reading an incunabulum. All of these speak across from the old world, though perhaps very long after the Third Age had concluded. I recommend it, highly and without reservation, even to a casual collector, especially now since it has recently gone out of print(ca. 2003-2005, around the time the slipcased, black bonded-leather, US 50th Anniversary edition [ISBN 0-618-51765-0] was published), and is very unlikely to be reissued. It (the Red) listed for $75, and Amazon last sold new copies for $47.50 last January. Now however, fine, used copies are nearing the original list price for the new, and new copies are nearing $100, and very hard to find. Buy one now, as soon as you find one available fine or better.

I’m at that point in my life where I want beautiful things that are a pleasure to hold and feel. These deluxe editions are definitely that. The paper is rich and creamy feeling, the font is gorgeous, the books are sturdy and well made with spines that will stand up to multiple readings. But the illustrations really blew me away. I love them so much. This is an excellent present for a Tolkien fan, even if that fan is just yourself. Glad I bought them. As for the story—this is a classic for a reason. What can I add that hasn’t been said? The story is beautiful and deep. It will stand the test of time. If you’ve never read the books and only seen the movies, definitely get the books.