TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. With The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion.

London: HarperCollins, 2025. Four volumes housed in the publisher’s original black cloth slipcase, comprising The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, together with Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull’s indispensable The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion. Publisher’s decorated boards, each volume retaining its original illustrated dust jacket after Tolkien’s own designs and artwork. Companion volume in matching black cloth with gilt lettering to spine. A fine, unread set.

This attractive collector’s edition presents Tolkien’s epic in three separate volumes, illustrated throughout with the author’s own paintings, drawings, maps and calligraphy, many reproduced in colour. Based upon the definitive revised text, it offers readers the rare opportunity to experience Middle-earth through Tolkien’s own visual imagination. Accompanying the trilogy is Hammond and Scull’s celebrated Reader’s Companion, a chapter-by-chapter scholarly guide providing detailed annotations, textual history, linguistic notes and extensive commentary drawn from Tolkien’s manuscripts and correspondence. First published in 2005, the Companion has become the standard reference work for serious students and collectors of The Lord of the Rings.

A handsome modern collector’s edition, combining the complete illustrated trilogy with the essential reference volume in a matching publisher’s slipcase.

[WR]