The Lord of the Rings (One Volume Edition) [Paperback]

J.R.R. Tolkien (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1999

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 his fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, Sauron's power spread far and wide. He gathered all the Great Rings to him, but ever he searched far and wide for the One Ring that would complete his dominion. On his eleventy-first birthday Bilbo 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, Merry, Pippin, and Sam, Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, Boromir of Gondor, and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A Christian can almost be forgiven for not reading the Bible, but there's no salvation for a fantasy fan who hasn't read the gospel of the genre, J.R.R. Tolkien's definitive three-book epic, the Lord of the Rings (encompassing The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King), and its charming precursor, The Hobbit. That many (if not most) fantasy works are in some way derivative of Tolkien is understood, but the influence of the Lord of the Rings is so universal that everybody from George Lucas to Led Zeppelin has appropriated it for one purpose or another.

Not just revolutionary because it was groundbreaking, the Lord of the Rings is timeless because it's the product of a truly top-shelf mind. Tolkien was a distinguished linguist and Oxford scholar of dead languages, with strong ideas about the importance of myth and story and a deep appreciation of nature. His epic, 10 years in the making, recounts the Great War of the Ring and the closing of Middle-Earth's Third Age, a time when magic begins to fade from the world and men rise to dominance. Tolkien carefully details this transition with tremendous skill and love, creating in the Lord of the Rings a universal and all-embracing tale, a justly celebrated classic. --Paul Hughes

From Library Journal

New Line Cinema will be releasing "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy in three separate installments, and Houghton Mifflin Tolkien's U.S. publisher since the release of The Hobbit in 1938 will be re-releasing each volume of the trilogy separately and in a boxed set (ISBN 0-618-15397-7. $22; pap. ISBN 0-618-15396-9. $12).
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1216 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395974682
• ISBN-13: 978-0395974681
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2,058 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #987,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

720 of 768 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The finest edition of LOTR ever published, October 26, 2004

By 

Larry D. Curtis "MrCere" (Utah, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lord of the Rings (50th Anniversary Edition) (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.

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.)

581 of 628 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My absolute favorite book, December 17, 2000

By 

Chad M. Brick (Ann Arbor, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lord of the Rings (Illustrated Edition) (Hardcover)

This is not a review of Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". Its having been voted "The Greatest Book of the Millenium" here on Amazon.com says more than enough about the worth of Tolkien's work. Rather, it is a review of the several hardcover editions of this fantastic story.

There are for major hardcover editions of LOTR, all published by Houghton Mifflin Co. They are essentially the same price, so I will not take that into consideration.

The best of the editions (5 stars) is the blue Alan Lee illustrated version printed in Nov 1991. I have owned this book for several years, and read it three times. It is durable, beautiful, and has no flaws that I have found. The illustrations are wonderful, though most Tolkien fans will have seen these pictures before.

The red edition printed in Nov 1974 is also a solid edition of the book (4 stars). It is every bit as good as the blue version, but does not have the illustrations. If you are the type of reader that prefers to leave everything to your imagination, this is the version for you.

Both the blue and red versions have matching editions of "The Hobbit" (Houghton Mifflin, Sep 1997 or Oct 1973, respectively). I found both of these editions to be satisfactory.

The other two major editions of LOTR - the white three-volume edition from Oct 1988 and the black seven-volume edition from Jan 2000 - are not recommended (2 stars). The print quality in both is poor, and the durability is less than that of the red and blue versions. The only advantage of these editions is portability, as the red and blue versions are single-volume and quite hefty.

Ramble on....

216 of 231 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Super Fantastic!, April 2, 2003

By 

Randy Given (Manchester, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Gift Set (Audio CD)

Super fantastic! I have read the "Lord of the Rings" (LotR) trilogy eight times. I think that Peter Jackson's movies are the best to day. I think that the 13-hour BBC production is the best radio play to date. Although this 55-hour 46-CD set is the only unabridged audio book for LotR, I doubt that it could be surpassed.

Inglis does an excellent job at articulation and dramatization, giving different intonation and mannerisms to different characters. It really is as if you were reading the book.

The recording is very good. The CDs performed well. The packaging is excellent, in a cardboard case, with three cardboard boxes, each with three liners that can hold up to four CDs each.

One thing that I liked about this is that each track is around three minutes long. This is great for when you have to stop and pick up later -- especially if your portable CD player does not remember the track!

Another thing that I liked was the lack of dynamic range. Yes, the lack of it. The loudness is very even across a wine range of topics. This is especially important when listening in the car or with headphones, typically in noisy environment. With some other products, I was constantly turning the volume up and down. Not with this set. However, the performance of the reading did not suffer at all because of this. That is great!

This should be in every library of LotR fans, especially those that travel a lot and want to listen while on the go. Highly recommended!