"THE MOST INFLUENTIAL FANTASY NOVEL EVER WRITTEN": EXCEPTIONAL FIRST EDITIONS OF ALL THREE VOLUMES OFTHE LORD OF THE RINGS, IN ORIGINAL DUST JACKETS

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; housed in a custom full morocco clamshell box. $70,000.

First editions, in original 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.

"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. Dust jacket on Return of the King price-clipped.

Books with only light wear to cloth, Fellowship of the Ring with inner paper hinge expertly reinforced and expertly repaired closed tear to bottom edge of pages 93-94; dust jackets with uniform toning to spines, mild soiling, dust jacket on Fellowship of the Ring with foxing, a bit of color offset from cloth. A very good unrestored set.