"THE MOST INFLUENTIAL FANTASY NOVEL EVER WRITTEN": FIRST EDITIONS OF ALL THREE VOLUMES OFTHE LORD OF THE RINGS, A STUNNING SET

TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The Two Towers. The Return of the King. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954-55. Three volumes. Octavo, original red cloth, original dust jackets. $125,000.

First editions, in original first edition dust jackets, of all three volumes of Tolkien's stirring tour de force: his richly imagined, elegantly crafted and wildly popular vision of the battle for the fate of Middle-Earth. A beautiful copy.

"The most influential fantasy novel ever written" (Clute & Grant, 951). Although immediately occasioned by his publisher's request for a sequel to The Hobbit (1937), Tolkien's incomparable epic draws on lore, legends and languages of Middle-Earth that he had been creating since the First World War. He wrote The Lord of the Rings during World War II in letters to his son, "and finally, having polished it to his own satisfaction, published it as a trilogy from 1954 to 1955, a volume at a time, impatiently awaited by a growing audience… [It is considered] one of this century's lasting contributions to that borderland of literature between youth and age… [It] seems destined to become this century's contribution to that select list of books which continue through the ages to be read by children and adults with almost equal pleasure" (Eyre, 134-35). "Many critics, including W.H. Auden, praised it as an extraordinary achievement" (DNB). "Of all popular bestsellers, The Lord of the Rings is the one most likely to be read over and over again" (Shippey, 306). Large folding maps, printed in black and red, at rear of each book. Return of the King in Hammond's revised first state, with no mark "4" and straight type on page 49. Hammond & Anderson A5a. Fantasy and Horror 5-289. Pringle, Modern Fantasy, 60-61. Fantasy 100 Best, 161-62. Owner signature, small bookstore slip in first volume.

Books with a bit of toning to endpapers of first and last volume, text and cloth fine; beautiful dust jackets supplied from another set of first impressions, with only mildest toning and creasing to spine ends. Exceptionally desirable in such magnificent condition.