The Lord of the Rings: 50th Anniversary Edition Book

A Christian can be forgiven for not reading the Bible--heck, it's a pretty big book after all. 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, Amazon.com

The Lord of the Rings : Hardback : HarperCollins Publishers : 9780261103207 : : 01 Nov 1994 : This special 50th anniversary hardback edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic masterpiece includes the complete revised and reset text, two-fold out maps printed in red and black and, unique to this edition, a full-colour fold-out reproduction of Tolkien's own facsimile pages from the Book of Mazarbul that the Fellowship discover in Moria.