The Tolkien Illustrated Collection: Version 2 Complete Listing
This post will serve as a summary of what I like to call 'The Tolkien Illustrated Collection: Version 2.' Version 1, featured The Hobbit from 1997, The Lord of the Rings boxed set in 2002, and The Silmarillion from 2004. All of those matched one another, in terms of size dimensions and design aesthetics.
I will list the following titles in the order that they were originally published. This post is done for convenience and reference purposes for those that are seeking out these editions. This collection is complete, and this post may serve well for any shoppers, due to the time of year. 
THE HOBBIT
ISBN:
9780008376116
"A great modern classic and the prelude to The Lord of the Rings.
Smaug
certainly looked fast asleep, almost dead and dark, with scarcely a
snore more than a whiff of unseen steam, when Bilbo peeped once more
from the entrance. He was just about to step out on to the floor when he
caught a sudden thin and piercing ray of red from under the drooping
lid of Smaug’s left eye. He was only pretending to sleep! He was
watching the tunnel entrance!
Whisked away from his comfortable,
unambitious life in his hobbit-hole in Bag End by Gandalf the wizard and
a band of dwarves, Bilbo Baggins finds himself caught up in a plot to
raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very
dangerous dragon. Although quite reluctant to take part in this quest,
Bilbo surprises even himself by his resourcefulness and his skill as a
burglar!
The text of this edition has been fully corrected and
revised in collaboration with Christopher Tolkien and is accompanied by a
wealth of beautiful watercolour paintings and delicate pencil drawings
from Alan Lee."
THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
ISBN:
9780008376123
"The Fellowship of the Ring is the first part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic adventure, The Lord of the Rings.
Sauron,
the Dark Lord, has gathered to him all the Rings of Power – the means
by which he intends to rule Middle-earth. All he lacks in his plans for
dominion is the One Ring – the ring that rules them all – which has
fallen into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.
In a sleepy
village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an
immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care.
Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across
Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil
the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.
The text of this edition has
been fully corrected and revised in collaboration with Christopher
Tolkien and is accompanied by nineteen watercolour paintings from Alan
Lee."
THE TWO TOWERS
ISBN:
9780008376130
"The Two Towers is the second part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic adventure, The Lord of the Rings.
Now they continue their journey alone down the great River Anduin – alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.
The text of this edition has been fully corrected and revised in collaboration with Christopher Tolkien and is accompanied by sixteen watercolour paintings from Alan Lee."
THE RETURN OF THE KING
ISBN: 9780008376147
"The Return of the King is the third part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic adventure, The Lord of the Rings.
The Companions of the Ring have become involved in separate adventures as the quest continues. Aragorn, revealed as the hidden heir of the ancient Kings of the West, joined with the Riders of Rohan against the forces of Isengard, and took part in the desperate victory of the Hornburg. Merry and Pippin, captured by orcs, escaped into Fangorn Forest and there encountered the Ents.
Gandalf returned, miraculously, and defeated the evil wizard, Saruman. Meanwhile, Sam and Frodo progressed towards Mordor to destroy the Ring, accompanied by Sméagol–Gollum, still obsessed by his ‘preciouss’. After a battle with the giant spider, Shelob, Sam left his master for dead; but Frodo is still alive – in the hands of the orcs. And all the time the armies of the Dark Lord are massing.
The text of this edition has been fully corrected and revised in collaboration with Christopher Tolkien and is accompanied by fifteen watercolour paintings from Alan Lee."
BOXED SET OF THE ABOVE EDITIONS
ISBN: 9780008376109
THE LORD OF THE RINGS (the complete novel as one book)
THE SILMARILLION
ISBN: 9780008433949
" Including brand-new paintings, this is a fully illustrated new edition of the forerunner to The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion fills in the background which lies behind the more popular work, and gives the earlier history of Middle-earth, introducing some of the key characters.
The Silmarillion is the core of J.R.R. Tolkien’s imaginative writing, a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth, through the Second Age and the rise of Sauron, to the end of the War of the Ring.
They are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-earth, and the Elves made war upon him in his impenetrable fortress in Angband for the recovery of the Silmarils, three jewels containing the last remaining pure light of Valinor, seized by Morgoth and set in his iron crown.
Accompanying these tales are several shorter works. The Ainulindalë is a myth of the Creation and in the Valaquenta the nature and powers of the gods is described. The Akallabêth recounts the downfall of the great island kingdom of Númenor at the end of the Second Age and Of the Rings of Power tells of the great events at the end of the Third Age, as told in The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien could not publish The Silmarillion in his lifetime, as it grew with him, so he would leave it to his son, Christopher, to edit the work from many manuscripts and bring his father’s great vision to publishable form, so completing the literary achievement of a lifetime. This special edition presents anew this seminal first step towards mapping out the posthumous publishing of Middle-earth, and the beginning of an illustrious forty years and more than twenty books celebrating his father’s legacy.
Also included is a letter by J.R.R. Tolkien written in 1951 which provides a brilliant exposition of the earlier Ages, and almost 50 full-colour paintings by Ted Nasmith, including some which appear here for the first time."
UNFINISHED TALES
ISBN:
9780008387952
"Unfinished Tales is a collection of narratives ranging in
time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth to the end of the War of the
Ring, and provides those who have read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with a whole collection of background and new stories.
The book concentrates on the realm of Middle-earth and comprises such elements as The Quest of Erebor, Gandalf’s lively account of how it was that he came to send the Dwarves to the celebrated party at Bag-End; the emergence of the sea-god Ulmo before the eyes of Tuor on the coast of Beleriand; and an exact description of the military organization of the Riders of Rohan.
Unfinished Tales also contains the only story about the long ages of Númenor before its downfall, and all that is known about such matters as the Five Wizards, the Palantíri and the legend of Amroth. The tales were edited by Christopher Tolkien, who provides a short commentary on each story, helping the reader to fill in the gaps and put each story into the context of the rest of his father’s writings."
THE CHILDREN OF HURIN
ISBN: 9780007246229
"Painstakingly restored from Tolkien's manuscripts and presented for the first time as a fully continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of The Children of Húrin will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, dragons and Dwarves, eagles and Orcs, and the rich landscape and characters unique to Tolkien.
There are tales of Middle-earth from times long before The Lord of the Rings, and the story told in this book is set in the great country that lay beyond the Grey Havens in the West: lands where Treebeard once walked, but which were drowned in the great cataclysm that ended the First Age of the World.
In that remote time Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in the vast fortress of Angband, the Hells of Iron, in the North; and the tragedy of Túrin and his sister Nienor unfolded within the shadow of the fear of Angband and the war waged by Morgoth against the lands and secret cities of the Elves.
Their brief and passionate lives were dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bore them as the children of Húrin, the man who had dared to defy and to scorn him to his face. Against them he sent his most formidable servant, Glaurung, a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire. Into this story of brutal conquest and flight, of forest hiding-places and pursuit, of resistance with lessening hope, the Dark Lord and the Dragon enter in direly articulate form. Sardonic and mocking, Glaurung manipulated the fates of Túrin and Nienor by lies of diabolic cunning and guile, and the curse of Morgoth was fulfilled.
The earliest versions of this story by J.R.R. Tolkien go back to the end of the First World War and the years that followed; but long afterwards, when The Lord of the Rings was finished, he wrote it anew and greatly enlarged it in complexities of motive and character: it became the dominant story in his later work on Middle-earth. But he could not bring it to a final and finished form. In this book Christopher Tolkien has constructed, after long study of the manuscripts, a coherent narrative without any editorial invention."
BEREN AND LUTHIEN
ISBN: 9780008214197
"Painstakingly restored from Tolkien's manuscripts and presented for the first time as a continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of Beren and Lúthien will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, Dwarves and Orcs and the rich landscape and creatures unique to Tolkien's Middle-earth.
The tale of Beren and Lúthien was, or became, an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion, the myths and legends of the First Age of the World conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien. Returning from France and the battle of the Somme at the end of 1916, he wrote the tale in the following year.
Essential to the story, and never changed, is the fate that shadowed the love of Beren and Lúthien: for Beren was a mortal man, but Lúthien was an immortal Elf. Her father, a great Elvish lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed Lúthien. This is the kernel of the legend; and it leads to the supremely heroic attempt of Beren and Lúthien together to rob the greatest of all evil beings, Melkor, called Morgoth, the Black Enemy, of a Silmaril.
In this book Christopher Tolkien has attempted to extract the story of Beren and Lúthien from the comprehensive work in which it was embedded; but that story was itself changing as it developed new associations within the larger history. To show something of the process whereby this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he has told the story in his father's own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed. Presented together for the first time, they reveal aspects of the story, both in event and in narrative immediacy, that were afterwards lost."
THE FALL OF GONDOLIN
ISBN: 9780008302757
"In the Tale of The Fall of Gondolin are two of the greatest powers in the world. There is Morgoth of the uttermost evil, unseen in this story but ruling over a vast military power from his fortress of Angband. Deeply opposed to Morgoth is Ulmo, second in might only to Manwë, chief of the Valar.
Central to this enmity of the gods is the city of Gondolin, beautiful but undiscoverable. It was built and peopled by Noldorin Elves who, when they dwelt in Valinor, the land of the gods, rebelled against their rule and fled to Middle-earth. Turgon King of Gondolin is hated and feared above all his enemies by Morgoth, who seeks in vain to discover the marvellously hidden city, while the gods in Valinor in heated debate largely refuse to intervene in support of Ulmo's desires and designs.
Into this world comes Tuor, cousin of Túrin, the instrument of Ulmo's designs. Guided unseen by him Tuor sets out from the land of his birth on the fearful journey to Gondolin, and in one of the most arresting moments in the history of Middle-earth the sea-god himself appears to him, rising out of the ocean in the midst of a storm. In Gondolin he becomes great; he is wedded to Idril, Turgon's daughter, and their son is Eärendel, whose birth and profound importance in days to come is foreseen by Ulmo.
At last comes the terrible ending. Morgoth learns through an act of supreme treachery all that he needs to mount a devastating attack on the city, with Balrogs and dragons and numberless Orcs. After a minutely observed account of the fall of Gondolin, the tale ends with the escape of Tuor and Idril, with the child Eärendel, looking back from a cleft in the mountains as they flee southward, at the blazing wreckage of their city. They were journeying into a new story, the Tale of Eärendel, which Tolkien never wrote, but which is sketched out in this book from other sources.
Following
his presentation of Beren and Lúthien Christopher Tolkien has used the
same 'history in sequence' mode in the writing of this edition of The
Fall of Gondolin. In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, it was 'the first real
story of this imaginary world' and, together with Beren and Lúthien and
The Children of Húrin, he regarded it as one of the three 'Great Tales'
of the Elder Days."
TALES FROM THE PERILOUS REALM
ISBN: 9780008453343
"Available for the first time in one volume, this is the definitive
collection of Tolkien's five acclaimed modern classic 'fairie' tales in
the vein of 'The Hobbit', fully corrected and reset for this edition and
all beautifully illustrated in pencil by the award-winning artist, Alan
Lee.The five tales are written with the same skill, quality and charm
that made The Hobbit a classic. Largely overlooked because of their
short lengths, they are finally together in a volume which reaffirms
Tolkien's place as a master storyteller for readers young and old.
•
Roverandom is a toy dog who, enchanted by a sand sorcerer, gets to
explore the world and encounter strange and fabulous creatures.
• Farmer
Giles of Ham is fat and unheroic, but - having unwittingly managed to
scare off a short-sighted giant - is called upon to do battle when a
dragon comes to town;
• The Adventures of Tom Bombadil tells in verse of
Tom's many adventures with hobbits, princesses, dwarves and trolls;
•
Leaf by Niggle recounts the strange adventures of the painter Niggle who
sets out to paint the perfect tree;
• Smith of Wootton Major journeys to
the Land of Faery thanks to the magical ingredients of the Great Cake
of the Feast of Good Children.
This new collection is fully illustrated
throughout by Oscar-winning artist, Alan Lee, who provides a wealth of
pencil drawings to bring the stories to life as he did so memorably for
The Hobbit and The Children of Húrin. Alan also provides an Afterword,
in which he opens the door into illustrating Tolkien's world.
Taken
together, this rich collection of new and unknown work from the author
of The Children of Húrin will provide the reader with a fascinating
journey into lands as wild and strange as Middle-earth."
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