The Lord of the Rings. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1972. Tenth Impression (paperback issue). Publisher’s pictorial wrappers, light fraying to head & tail of spine, otherwise a nice bright copy.

Signed by the Author verso front wrapper. Exceeding rare thus.

The complete trilogy, first published in this format in one volume 1968.

In January 1972, while studying at Merton College, Oxford, the former owner of this copy was asked to give up his room for Professor Tolkien who had been offered a room after his wife’s death and needed to be on the ground floor as the elderly author could no longer manage stairs. Tolkien was appreciative and the two often met at lunch throughout 1972. When this impression of Lord of the Rings was published in spring of that year, he bought a copy from Blackwells Bookshop. At lunch he asked Tolkien to sign it for his girlfriend and, though Tolkien was grumpy because the royalties on paperbacks were less than hardbacks, the author agreed to sign it – just for him. Tolkien passed away the following year.

Tolkien worked on this epic, not so much a trilogy as a long novel, from the publication of The Hobbit (1937) until the early 1950s. Beginning with the appearance of the second edition of 1966 and the nearly simultaneous appearance of the paperback edition in America, The Lord of the Rings became one of the best-selling works of fiction of the century. This is the paradigmatic work of modern heroic fantasy. . . . Its success was not immediate, but its publication in paperback was an event sufficiently momentous to transform completely the market situation of heroic fantasy, and hence bring about a new era in its history. The Lord of the Rings made fantasy a significant publishing category and inspired a deluge of new works. The astonishing reception and influence of this work qualify it as one of the most remarkable literary phenomena of the 20th century (Neil Barron: Fantasy Literature: A Reader’s Guide).