One
Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in
the darkness bind them
In
ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron,
the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he
could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he
sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it
fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.
From
Sauron's fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide.
Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One
Ring that would complete his dominion.
When
Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his
young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across
Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by
casting it into the Cracks of Doom.
The
Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the
Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam;
Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger
called Strider.
This
new edition includes the fiftieth-anniversary fully corrected text setting and,
for the first time, an extensive new index.
J.R.R.
Tolkien (1892-1973), beloved throughout the world as the creator of The Hobbit,
The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at
Oxford, a fellow of Pembroke College, and a fellow of Merton College until his
retirement in 1959. His chief interest was the linguistic aspects of the early
English written tradition, but while he studied classic works of the past, he
was creating a set of his own.
More about the Authors:
J.R.R. Tolkien Biography
J.R.R.
Tolkien (1892.1973), beloved throughout the world as
the creator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, was a professor of
Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, a fellow of Pembroke College, and a fellow of Merton
College until his retirement in 1959. His chief interest was the linguistic
aspects of the early English written tradition, but even as he studied these
classics he was creating a set of his own.
Brian Sibley
Biography
I have been a professional
writer for thirty years and a freelance broadcaster for the BBC in London for
almost as long.
My career began as a
radio-writer with dramatisations for the BBC which include serialisations of J.
R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", C. S. Lewis' "The
Chronicles of Narnia" and Mervyn Peake's "Titus Groan" and
"Gormenghast" for which I won a coveted Sony Radio Award. I have also
made radio programmes on a wide variety of topics from the history of magic to
the crimes of Jack the Ripper! Series of note include "A Century of
Cinema", "The Sound of Movies" and "'Ain't No Mickey Mouse
Business!"
My specialist
interests have always been film (in particular animation) and children's
literature and I have broadcast numerous radio and TV programmes and written
several books about both these topics.
For the best part of
a decade I presented weekly arts and film programmes on the BBC's domestic and
World Service networks but have spent the last few years concentrating on books
including a couple of best-sellers on the making of Peter Jackson's film
trilogy, "The Lord of the Rings" and researching and writing that
director's authorised biography, scheduled for publication in 2006.
I live in London with
my life partner, a professional magician, in a house overcrowded with so many
books, DVDs and CDs (not to mention all those old videos and gramophone
records!) that it is seriously beginning to look like one of Amazon.com's
smaller warehouses!
Customer
Reviews:
Glad I did, this is a timeless story with
rich detail and wonderful character development.
Frederic
J. Proff
The movie, The Fellowship of the Ring has
inspired me to read the set of fantasy classics by J.R.R Tolkien; The Hobbit
and The Lord of the Rings.
Kevin
H
If you are wondering if you want to buy a
boxed set or the illustrated edition, buy the illustrated edition.
James
A. Russell
A
superb dramatisation on CD at last !
By
Kwaile on January 12, 2000
Format:
Audio CD
I bought the audio-cassette edition of this
years ago, before the days of CD and online shopping, and I've long been hoping
that it would one day be released on CD. It really is a magnificent achievement
- the thought, planning, respect and sheer professionalism that have gone into
creating this is simply remarkable. What a contrast to the execrable Mind's Eye
edition ! The BBC version is not a complete reading of the book, but rather a
(judiciously) abridged and compact dramatisation. Having said that, it's still
very long. It's like listening to a really good, long (13 hours!) film of LOTR
with your eyes closed.
The atmosphere and feeling of the book has been captured wonderfully, with great, stirring performances from internationally-known and respected actors like Ian Holm, Michael Horden and Robert Stephens. The music and songs are haunting and dramatic, and the sound effects are so authentic that you really feel like you're there with the Company on its quest to destroy the ring. Even the packaging is of the highest quality, another thing the people that made the Mind's Eye version should take note of.
The CDs come in a very nicely designed box with artwork, maps, and other information. Quite a few people have been asking which CD edition to buy - if you want an amateurish, cartoon-style version this isn't for you. If, however, you are looking for excitement, intelligence, humour, a sense of wonder, and faithfulness to the spirit of Tolkien's masterpiece, then the BBC edition shouldn't disappoint.
The atmosphere and feeling of the book has been captured wonderfully, with great, stirring performances from internationally-known and respected actors like Ian Holm, Michael Horden and Robert Stephens. The music and songs are haunting and dramatic, and the sound effects are so authentic that you really feel like you're there with the Company on its quest to destroy the ring. Even the packaging is of the highest quality, another thing the people that made the Mind's Eye version should take note of.
The CDs come in a very nicely designed box with artwork, maps, and other information. Quite a few people have been asking which CD edition to buy - if you want an amateurish, cartoon-style version this isn't for you. If, however, you are looking for excitement, intelligence, humour, a sense of wonder, and faithfulness to the spirit of Tolkien's masterpiece, then the BBC edition shouldn't disappoint.
Weak
Maps, spelling errors, don't do justice
By
Tal on December 29, 2000
Format:
Mass Market Paperback
As someone else mentioned, we all know the
Lord of the Rings to be by the far one of the greatest works of writing of the
20th century. It is all a game we play with Tolkien, for he too took it much
more seriously then any other Fantasy of Science Fiction writer ever has. He
made up languages that existed in relationship to languages and dialects that
we have in english, and thus created a nightmare for Translators. He told
stories of all sorts of perils of creation, and made sure everything was done
right.
Thus, when an edition like this comes out, it is truly painful. For one, originally, Tolkien created some of the most beautiful maps of Middle Earth, spending time making sure that all of the proportions were accurate. He didn't just jumble down some lines for the coast line, for example. He spent many hours making sure everything was proportinate and made sense.
However, sometime after 1988, Ballantine started to release editions of the triliogy with completely new maps, all signed by some Shelly Shapiro. In either case, these new maps were plauged with problems, from being too cartoony and unproportinate to having names of locations from the original maps done away with.
The maps, from the very beginning, have been essential to the LoTR books, and having cheap maps made is annoying beyond belief. It shows a sign of disrespect from the editors. To me, it says, "People won't notice anyway. Lets make a smaller sized book with less detailed maps and save some money.
" If you truly want to expierience this epic (or history, more accurately) as Tolkien envisioned it (not some editor at Ballantine), spend some extra cash and either get a different edition or buy a good map (there is currently an excellent one made by Christopher Tolkien, which is much larger and detailed).
Of course, were the maps adequate, this edition still suffers from annoying miscopies and misprints and so on? Don't sell out for cheap editions. You've been warned.
Thus, when an edition like this comes out, it is truly painful. For one, originally, Tolkien created some of the most beautiful maps of Middle Earth, spending time making sure that all of the proportions were accurate. He didn't just jumble down some lines for the coast line, for example. He spent many hours making sure everything was proportinate and made sense.
However, sometime after 1988, Ballantine started to release editions of the triliogy with completely new maps, all signed by some Shelly Shapiro. In either case, these new maps were plauged with problems, from being too cartoony and unproportinate to having names of locations from the original maps done away with.
The maps, from the very beginning, have been essential to the LoTR books, and having cheap maps made is annoying beyond belief. It shows a sign of disrespect from the editors. To me, it says, "People won't notice anyway. Lets make a smaller sized book with less detailed maps and save some money.
" If you truly want to expierience this epic (or history, more accurately) as Tolkien envisioned it (not some editor at Ballantine), spend some extra cash and either get a different edition or buy a good map (there is currently an excellent one made by Christopher Tolkien, which is much larger and detailed).
Of course, were the maps adequate, this edition still suffers from annoying miscopies and misprints and so on? Don't sell out for cheap editions. You've been warned.
Do NOT buy this edition
By
Mark Warren on December 21, 2000
Format:
Mass Market Paperback
Everyone knows the Hobbit and the Lord of the
Rings are wonderful stories, and I fully agree. The reason for my bad rating of
this PARTICULAR edition of JRR Tolkien's works is that the books are riddled
with typographical errors, some so severe that they change the meaning of
sentences, effectively reversing the author's intent.
One example: "The Breelanders locked their doors at night, which was also not unusual in the Shire." The word "unusual" should have been "usual"--i.e., the Shire Hobbits don't usually lock their doors at night. But exactly the opposite idea is conveyed by this typographical error! And there are many more errors where that one came from. I counted THREE errors on ONE PAGE! AVOID THIS EDITION at all costs!
One example: "The Breelanders locked their doors at night, which was also not unusual in the Shire." The word "unusual" should have been "usual"--i.e., the Shire Hobbits don't usually lock their doors at night. But exactly the opposite idea is conveyed by this typographical error! And there are many more errors where that one came from. I counted THREE errors on ONE PAGE! AVOID THIS EDITION at all costs!
The
finest edition of LOTR ever published
By
Larry D. Curtis on October 26, 2004
Format:
Hardcover
While the price of this book is steep, this
is easily the best version of this book in print. The gilded pages and
high-quality leather look, smell and feel wonderful. This is not the
questionable quality leather used on previous versions, this is the real deal.
More importantly, this version has, as J.R.R. recorded in letters,
reproductions of the Book of Marzubul.
These are the pages from the Dwarven book found in the Mines of Moria by Gandalf and the Fellowship. In the begining and ending of the book are also included maps that fold out to render Middle-earth for the reader, again as the author originally wanted. This is the book that Tolkien dreamed of having published but couldn't due to the realities of post-WWII publishing costs and questions about a 400,000 word publication.
These are the pages from the Dwarven book found in the Mines of Moria by Gandalf and the Fellowship. In the begining and ending of the book are also included maps that fold out to render Middle-earth for the reader, again as the author originally wanted. This is the book that Tolkien dreamed of having published but couldn't due to the realities of post-WWII publishing costs and questions about a 400,000 word publication.
For me, there is an emtoional response to
this book for two reasons. One, it is as fine or better than the book the
author originally wished to have published and two, it is a beautiful piece of
art all on its own, suitable for display. If you love books or love Tolkien or
both, this is a must have and the centerpiece of any worthy collection.
(Some
are commenting that the book isn't actually leather. Be sure to check your
version as there are others available, but the information provided to me
stated my copy was leather and if it is fake, it fooled me.)
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