The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; The Return of the King ++++ A SUPERB SIGNED & REMARQUED 3 VOLUME SLIPCASED EDITION - FIRST PRINTING THUS - SIGNED BY ALAN LEE ++++

Comprising three oversized hardback volumes housed in a full-colour slipcase, this edition of Tolkien’s classic masterpiece is fully illustrated in watercolour throughout by the acclaimed and award-winning artist, Alan Lee.
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 has touched the hearts of young and old alike. Well 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.

With the epic trilogy now being released on film, images of the characters and landscapes have become eagerly sought after. Much of the look of the movies is based on Alan Lee’s paintings, giving this Centenary edition of Tolkien’s great work new relevance for the ever-growing number of fans.

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