TOLKIEN, J.R.R. (illustrated by Alan Lee). The Lord of the Rings. London: HarperCollins, 1991.

4to. Original gilt brown buckram cloth with gilt titling and device to spine and boards. Red satin ribbon marker. Pictorial dust jacket. 1,193 pp. plus appendices and maps. Fifty full-colour plates by Alan Lee throughout. Centenary Edition — 23rd Impression.

Of all the illustrated editions that Tolkien's work has attracted over the decades, none has proved more enduring or more widely beloved than this one. Published in 1991 to mark the centenary of Tolkien's birth on the third of January 1892, it brought together for the first time the complete text of The Lord of the Rings in a single volume with fifty original paintings commissioned from Alan Lee — an artist whose vision of Middle-earth is so thoroughly absorbed into the collective imagination that it has become, for most readers, simply what Tolkien's world looks like.

This edition established Lee as the pre-eminent visual interpreter of the legendarium, a relationship that would extend through his work as conceptual designer on Peter Jackson's films and beyond. This remains the standard by which all subsequent illustrated editions of the work are measured.

Near fine in a near fine unclipped pictorial dust jacket. Some very minor markings to the lower corner of the text block, otherwise presenting as new.

Catalogue Number: HH000449