The Lord of the Rings Second Impression 1968 (Paperback)

J. R. R. Tolkien

ISBN 10: 0048230871 / ISBN 13: 9780048230874

Published by George Allen and Unwin, 1968

About this Item

Paperback, all three volumes in one, 1968 second impression being the release of the very first single-volume edition thus. The binding is tight and straight. There is a neat name/date ink inscription to first (half-title) page. Rubbing to spine edges which has worn off the black lines of the printed surface (see photos). Typical wear to covers in general and of most note, a crease running vertically down the front cover. Page block unstained.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1781883754787

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Lord of the Rings Second Impression 1968 (Paperback)
• Publisher: George Allen and Unwin
• Publication Date: 1968
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0048230871
• ISBN 13: 9780048230874
• Binding: Soft cover
• Illustrator: Pauline Baynes
• Edition: 2nd Edition
• Condition: Fair
• Weight: 807.394 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Fiction

About this title

Synopsis

Continuing the story of The Hobbit, this seven-volume paperback boxed set of Tolkien's epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings is a collection to treasure. Sauron, the Dark Lord, has gathered to him all the Rings of Power; the means by which he intends to rule Middle-earth. All he lacks in his plans for dominion is the One Ring -- the ring that rules them all -- which has fallen into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as the Ring is entrusted to his care. He must leave his home and make a perilous journey across the realms of Middle-earth to the Crack of Doom, deep inside the territories of the Dark Lord. There he must destroy the Ring forever and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose. Discover the incredible epic journey of Frodo in a celebratory seven-volume boxed set of fantasy classic, The Lord of the Rings.

Review

This is a single-volume edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which the hobbit Frodo and his elfish friends get swept up in a mighty conflict with the dark lord Sauron (who owes much to proud Satan in Paradise Lost), the monstrous Gollum, the Cracks of Doom, and the awful power of the magical Ring. The book's characters--good and evil--are recognizably human, and the realism is deepened by the magnificent detail of the vast parallel world Tolkien devised, inspired partly by his influential Anglo-Saxon scholarship and his Christian beliefs. (He disapproved of the relative sparseness of detail in the comparable allegorical fantasy his friend C.S. Lewis dreamed up in the Chronicles of Narnia, though he knew Lewis had spun a page-turning yarn.) It has been estimated that one-tenth of all paperbacks sold can trace their ancestry to J.R.R. Tolkien. But even if we had never gotten Robert Jordan's The Path of Daggers and the whole fantasy genre Tolkien inadvertently created by bringing the hobbits so richly to life, Tolkien's epic about the Ring would have left our world enhanced by enchantment. --Tim Appelo