J.R.R. Tolkien

A set of the first printings of the second US edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, comprising The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.

• Sold as a set of 3 volumes.
• J.R.R. Tolkien (English).
• Jackets and label designed by Robert Quackenbush. 
• Boston/Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press, 1967.
• 424, 452 and 440 pages respectively.
• With all folding maps (by Tolkien's son Christopher) present.
• Houghton Mifflin review slips loosely laid into each volume.
• Bound in the original publisher's full black gilt-stamped cloth all in original unclipped ($6.00) color pictorial dust jackets.

Tolkien's Middle Earth grew not only from his experiences in World War I and studies as a professor of English language and literature at Oxford, but from his childhood hobby of constructed languages (conlangs). Tolkien argued in his essay "A Secret Vice" that "for perfect construction of an art-language it is found necessary to construct at least in outline a mythology" along with it. In other words, "your language construction will breed a mythology." Middle Earth sprang into being in part so that Tolkien could draw on a mature culture, history and mythology for his beloved conlangs. As a result, we have Bilbo, Frodo and Sam; Gandalf the Grey, and Aragorn who is Strider; the One Ring, the covetous Gollum; and a harrowing journey to Mount Doom.

Houghton published the first US editions of the trilogy from 1954-1956. This second US edition follows closely the second UK from Allen & Unwin of the previous year, which was heavily revised and corrected by the author. These books, marketed as the "Revised Edition" and including a new foreword by Tolkien, were issued both as individual volumes (as here) and a slipcased set.