JRRT's art work for LotR: "The Art of the Lord of the Rings"

[Deleted member 12094]

Here is a fine book for whoever may be curious about JRRT's early interest of producing images to accompany his publications.

"The Art of the Lord of the Rings" covers 5 categories of such drawings:

1. Cartographic art: JRRT made a succession of maps for The Lord of the Rings, with a variety of scales.
2. Drawings: JRRT made as pictorial aids to his writing as he worked out details e.g. Helms Deep, Orthanc, designs of Minas Tirith.
3. Works JRRT seems to have made solely for pleasure as spontaneous visual expressions of text he had already written or conceived, or that he would come to write.
4. A small amount of art planned to be used in LotR, like the letters in the One Ring, the doors of Moria etc.
5. Finally, (I'm quoting) there are a number of designs Tolkien made for publication, but which have never appeared in, or with, an edition of The Lord of the Rings, or did not do so until many years had passed. These include most famously the ‘facsimiles’ of leaves from the ‘Book of Mazarbul' found in Moria, which Tolkien made with great labour and thought essential to his book but were too expensive to print, and the versions of the ‘King’s Letter’ associated with an Epilogue Tolkien wrote for LotR but ultimately omitted. He also made dust-jacket designs for the three volumes in which The Lord of the Rings was first published but which were not used initially, due to cost as well as difficulties of reproduction.

Some of that art displayed in this book looks sketchy, although it may still be interesting for the evolutionary thoughts until the final product came to fruition (was anything “finally” final to JRRT, anyways...) but some "final" images were never published. As an example, herewith comes a scan of the last version of the first page of the Book of Mazarbul; just sit down and read it comfortably when you have 5 minutes!

What surprised me most about this publication with its many pictures in it was that I had seen JRRT only as a genius story-teller: I discovered that he appears to have loved producing works of art as well, often too expensive to include in the publications thereafter. A surprising lot is from his own hand.

This publication, "The Art of the Lord of the Rings", is from Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, published by HarperCollinsPublisers in 2015; ISBN 978-0-00-810575-4.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

The cover:

Here's a youtube examination of the "deluxe edition" -- not published in the US, unfortunately:

It's a companion volume to this:

The pages from the Book of Mazarbul finally made it into the 50th Anniversary edition.

 

[Olorgando]

You guy are terrible! 🤪

So not only is there the 1995 "J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator" by Hammond & Scull, no, there's also their "The Art of The Hobbit" from 2011 and "The Art of The Lord of the Rings" from 2015!!!
My first book (edited) by them was "Roverandom", though for a long time their names meant nothing to me.
I then bought their 2005 "The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion" and 2006 two-volume boxed set "The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide".
That was goaded on by references in my 2012 German translation of Douglas A. Anderson's 2002 second edition of his "Annotated Hobbit".
They have since published (late 2017?) an expanded, now three-volume of "The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide", probably expanding the "Reader's Guide" (a 1260-page fatso in my 2006 edition) and splitting it into two books. Considering what has happened since 2006 to add information to the "Guide", I'll give this a pass.

What I do have in the way of JRRT's art is the 1992 (now why would anyone want to publish JRRT stuff in that year specifically? ) edition, a coffee-table thingy, of "Pictures by J.R:R. Tolkien" with foreword and notes by Christopher Tolkien (first published 1979 by George Allen & Unwin). Format 315 x 305 millimeters or 12.4 x 12 inches. Includes three pages from the 'Book of Mazarbul' including the one shown by Merroe above. It may be out of print by now (I bought it in late 1993, probably ordered), and is according to some critics rather superseded by Hammond & Scull's 1995 "J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator".

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Heh -- I remember finding the original "Pictures" on a remainder table at Walden Books, back in '79. Bought one to send for Barliman's birthday.I couldn't afford but the one, that week, and figured I'd get one for myself the following week. Needless to say, when I went back, they were all gone. I've never seen another copy.

 

[Olorgando]

The first edition on a remainder table in the year it was published! Well, if the original prices were along the lines of what I paid for the 1992 anniversary reprint in 1993, I'd guess the market (and the printing run!) would have been quite small. I have the thing lying flat in my bookcase, including some other outsized books compared to the regular JRRT books, but those others I got at something like remainder rates (we spent a vacation in Ireland by car around 1993, and I had a huge haul of JRRT books from prowling the bookstores in Dublin, Cork and Malahide after a chance find in Dublin, but the car had a big trunk!).

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I'm afraid I don't have any version of the Reader's Guide; maybe it's a good thing I waited. I wonder if they ever changed their tune about leaving out the description of the doors of Meduseld? I considered that a major discovery by Christopher, filling an otherwise inexpliable gap in the text, and their rationale for omitting it from the corrected edition struck me as particularly lame.

I suppose I'll have to acquire a copy eventually -- if I can get over my simmering anger about stealing Fatty's pony! 😈

 

[Olorgando]

I'm afraid I don't have any version of the Reader's Guide; maybe it's a good thing I waited. I wonder if they ever changed their tune about leaving out the description of the doors of Meduseld? I considered that a major discovery by Christopher, filling an otherwise inexpliable gap in the text, and their rationale for omitting it from the corrected edition struck me as particularly lame.

I suppose I'll have to acquire a copy eventually -- if I can get over my simmering anger about stealing Fatty's pony! 😈

Doors of Meduseld? Edoras in Rohan, obviously, but you seem to have read a borrowed copy of the Reader's Guide with more attention than I have mine. But that may have to do with my severe indifference to things fashion, interior decoration and architecture. And where did Christopher make his major discovery known?

And it's been at least the second time I've read you huffing about Fatty (Bolger's) pony - I'm guessing at Crickhollow.
Now what is that all about?!? 🥴

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I'm hampered by being away from my library, sorry. The description of the doors is in one of the HoLOTR volumes -- probably "The War of the Ring". I did look it up in Reader's Companion, while in a bookstore; the reasoning for leaving it out was, IIRC, that Tolkien didn’t include it in the final manuscript. That, considering the other accidental omissions and inadvertent errors on the part of the author, seems to me a very weak argument.

And yes, the "Pony Problem" is at Crickhollow. There were originally six ponies, because there were, at one point, five hobbits going on the journey. The textual situation is extremely confused, because that chapter, along with much of the early part of the book, went through many revisions. No point in going through them all, but when it was finally settled into its current state of four traveling, one staying behind, the six ponies remained in the final manuscript. This, Christopher took to be an overlooked vestige of the earlier version, accidentally left uncorrected by the author, and Hammond and Scull made the "correction" themselves. I used quotation marks because this is one case where I believe it was the son, rather than the father, who was in error. Tolkien was fully capable of incorporating features from earlier into later drafts; we see him doing so throughout the manuscripts. He even used "errors" on occasion, rationalizing them into the story. In fact, he famously did so when Christopher made a mistake in drawing the map. This, I think, was one of those times.

 

[Olorgando]

Oh dear. Very deep trivia territory! 😳
Upon finding that my mid-eighties paperback LoTR had turned into a loose-leaf thing for about 100 pages at the beginning of TT (wear and tear from repeated readings), I ordered the 2002 HarperCollins hardcover version with illustrations by Alan Lee. Quite a bit later I found out that, between 2004 and 2014, several more errors had been corrected (apparently mostly by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, under supervision from Christopher Tolkien). My version still has, in Appendix B "The Tale of Years", section "The Third Age", the entry for 2983 TA "Faramir son of Denethor born. Birth of Samwise." Sam was actually born in 2980 TA and was thus older than Faramir ...

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

That's nice to know, but the change doesn't affect the story -- or perhaps I should say, the reader's impression of the story, or the characters.

One example of the latter would be the accidental omission of s from "others" in Aragorn's musing on the Elven-brooch.

And -- to me at least -- it's similar with the "pony problem": although in the opposite direction.

Admittedly, the effect is likely more pronounced, as far as the reader's impression goes, by the change in Aragorn's word, than by the elimination of the pony; but I think that may be due simply to glossing over the problems it presents.

I guess I wouldn't have minded so much, if H&S hadn't seemed so proud of themselves.

 

[Olorgando]

That's nice, but doesn't affect the story.

Quite certainly. But would Fatty Bolger still having had his pony at Crickhollow have been even the slightest help to him?
I very definitely think not, the Black Riders would have ridden him down in nothing flat!
"Fellowship", Book One, chapter XI "A Knife in the Dark": "But the Black Riders rode like a gale to the North-gate [of Buckland]". ...
"They rode down the guards at the gate and vanished from the Shire."
The Black Riders are again and again shown to be hampered at seeing or otherwise becoming cognizant of things in the "real world".
Even as fat a hobbit as then "Fatty" Bolger (we're not talking Bombur territory here!) would have been able to give these admittedly distorted "Big Folk" the slip with natural Hobbit "stealth" abilities, a pony would only have been an extreme hinderance.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

True. See my edit, though.

 

[Elthir]

I agree that the pony number works in the Tolkien-published account, and this need not have been edited.
I disagree with the footnote addition to Appendix F regarding the dark locks of the Noldor.
I agree with not changing Bilbo's song in Rivendell, even though I think it's not the last version.
I disagree with the addition of Himling and Tol Fuin to the maps.
I agree with CJRT concerning the description of Meduseld, that a guess is a guess.
I disagree that this post is necessary.
I agree that Brussels sprouts are good for you.

🐾

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Each of of has our own particular nits to pick.

PS: I like Brussel sprouts!

 

[Olorgando]

...
I agree that Brussels sprouts are good for you.

...
PS: I like Brussel sprouts!

I also like Brussels sprouts; and it is the only part of Galin's comments that I can form an in any way useful opinion on. 😬

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Back on topic , the correction of "other" to "others" in Aragorn's reference to the hobbits, alters the story not a whit; what it does do is alter the reader's impression of Aragorn's character.* As Christopher says, Aragorn would hardly speak of Merry so coldly, i.e., as "the other".

To me, it's the same with the ponies -- the difference there being that the implications resulting from the change go unnoticed by probably 99% of readers.

*Back off topic with a note on the movies: Barliman commented to me on the scene in the Pony, pointing out that Aragorn, even in his "Strider" guise, doesn't seem to be the sort of person who would pick someone up and throw him, however small he might be. A minor change, compared to the major distortions on display, but little things, added together, form our picture of character.