The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings [BOX SET] (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Hobbits and wizards and Sauron--oh, my! Mild-mannered Oxford scholar John Ronald Reuel Tolkien had little inkling when he published The Hobbit; Or, There and Back Again in 1937 that, once hobbits were unleashed upon the world, there would be no turning back. Hobbits are, of course, small, furry creatures who love nothing better than a leisurely life quite free from adventure. But in that first novel and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the hobbits Bilbo and Frodo and their elvish friends get swept up into a mighty conflict with the dragon Smaug, the dark lord Sauron (who owes much to proud Satan in Paradise Lost), the monstrous Gollum, the Cracks of Doom, and the awful power of the magical Ring. The four books' characters--good and evil--are recognizably human, and the realism is deepened by the magnificent detail of the vast parallel world Tolkien devised, inspired partly by his influential Anglo-Saxon scholarship and his Christian beliefs. (He disapproved of the relative sparseness of detail in the comparable allegorical fantasy his friend C.S. Lewis dreamed up in The Chronicles of Narnia, though he knew Lewis had spun a page-turning yarn.) It has been estimated that one-tenth of all paperbacks sold can trace their ancestry to J.R.R. Tolkien. But even if we had never gotten Robert Jordan's The Path of Daggers and the whole fantasy genre Tolkien inadvertently created by bringing the hobbits so richly to life, Tolkien's epic about the Ring would have left our world enhanced by enchantment. --Tim Appelo

Review

"The Hobbit is a flawless masterpiece". -- The Times of London

"The Hobbit is a flawless masterpiece". -- Review

"The Lord of the Rings is an extraordinary work -- pure excitement". -- The New York Times

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; 1 edition (September 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618002251
• ISBN-13: 978-0618002252
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 3.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,249 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #181,737 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

440 of 458 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do NOT buy this edition, December 21, 2000

By	Mark Warren (East Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: J.R.R. Tolkien Boxed Set (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) (Paperback)

Everyone knows the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings are wonderful stories, and I fully agree. The reason for my bad rating of this PARTICULAR edition of JRR Tolkien's works is that the books are riddled with typographical errors, some so severe that they change the meaning of sentences, effectively reversing the author's intent. One example: "The Breelanders locked their doors at night, which was also not unusual in the Shire." The word "unusual" should have been "usual"--i.e., the Shire Hobbits don't usually lock their doors at night. But exactly the opposite idea is conveyed by this typographical error! And there are many more errors where that one came from. I counted THREE errors on ONE PAGE! AVOID THIS EDITION at all costs!

590 of 625 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Weak Maps, spelling errors, don't do justice, December 29, 2000

By	Tal (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: J.R.R. Tolkien Boxed Set (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) (Paperback)

As someone else mentioned, we all know the Lord of the Rings to be by the far one of the greatest works of writing of the 20th century. It is all a game we play with Tolkien, for he too took it much more seriously then any other Fantasy of Science Fiction writer ever has. He made up languages that existed in relationship to languages and dialects that we have in english, and thus created a nightmare for Translators. He told stories of all sorts of perils of creation, and made sure everything was done right. Thus, when an edition like this comes out, it is truly painful. For one, originally, Tolkien created some of the most beautiful maps of Middle Earth, spending time making sure that all of the proportions were accurate. He didn't just jumble down some lines for the coast line, for example. He spent many hours making sure everything was proportinate and made sense. However, sometime after 1988, Ballantine started to release editions of the triliogy with completely new maps, all signed by some Shelly Shapiro. In either case, these new maps were plauged with problems, from being too cartoony and unproportinate to having names of locations from the original maps done away with. The maps, from the very beginning, have been essential to the LoTR books, and having cheap maps made is annoying beyond belief. It shows a sign of disrespect from the editors. To me, it says, "People won't notice anyway. Lets make a smaller sized book with less detailed maps and save some money." If you truly want to expierience this epic (or history, more accurately) as Tolkien envisioned it (not some editor at Ballantine), spend some extra cash and either get a different edition or buy a good map (there is currently an excellent one made by Christopher Tolkien, which is much larger and detailed). Of course, were the map adequate, this edition still suffers from annoying miscopies and misprints and so on. Don't sell out for cheap editions. You've been warned.

152 of 161 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Tolkien is tops, but this edition shaky on QUALITY, May 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: J.R.R. Tolkien Boxed Set (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) (Paperback)

I got this very boxed set the other day and The Hobbit fell apart on first reading. The cover just peeled right off as I read through! Boo to the publisher (Ballantine Books, NY) for messing up a classic of literature. Worse, I found spelling errors too... needless to say I got a refund and will get myself the Deluxe Edition.