A new edition of The Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien Illustrated Edition is coming
A new edition of The Lord of the Rings will feature 30 sketches and illustrations created by JRR Tolkien not seen in previous editions of the book.
This new release will be the first time that an edition of the Lord of the Rings will feature this art since 1954. And even then, when Tolkien originally included the art with the book’s first-ever publication, it only featured two of his illustrations, as reported by The Guardian.
Those two illustrations — the Doors of Durin and the Inscription on Balin’s Tomb — will be included in this new HarperCollins edition alongside 30 other sketches, illustrations, and maps.
Tolkien was always modest about his abilities as an artist: although a handful of his illustrations were featured in The Hobbit, the author described himself as “rather crushed” by comments from one critic that the images “show no reflection of his literary talent and imagination”, adding: “all the more so because I entirely agree with him” (CS Lewis reviewed the pictures and maps as “admirable”). In the middle of writing The Lord of the Rings, in 1939, he told his publisher that the work was “laborious”, and that “I should have no time or energy for illustration. I never could draw, and the half-baked intimations of it seem wholly to have left me. A map (very necessary) would be all I could do.”
The Tolkien estate has given HarperCollins the rights to publish a new edition of The Lord of the Rings that features the illustrations Tolkien always intended to accompany certain parts of the book. It will be released on October 19
