Tolkien, J.R.R.

3 volumes, 8vo. Folding map after author's design printed in red and black at rear of each volume; gift inscription to front free endpaper of 'The Fellowship of the Ring.' Publisher's red cloth, top-stained red, original white, red, black and gold dust jackets with central images after author's design; some toning or foxing to endpapers and fore-edges, spine panels of jackets toned, minor soiling and foxing to jackets, some dampstaining (to lower margins of jackets and boards of 'The Fellowship of the Ring,' and 'The Return of the King,' to upper margins of jacket and boards of 'The Two Towers'). 'Return of the King' in Hammond's first state without the signature mark 4 at page 49.

West A20-22

3 volumes, 8vo. Folding map after author's design printed in red and black at rear of each volume; gift inscription to front free endpaper of 'The Fellowship of the Ring.' Publisher's red cloth, top-stained red, original white, red, black and gold dust jackets with central images after author's design; some toning or foxing to endpapers and fore-edges, spine panels of jackets toned, minor soiling and foxing to jackets, some dampstaining (to lower margins of jackets and boards of 'The Fellowship of the Ring,' and 'The Return of the King,' to upper margins of jacket and boards of 'The Two Towers'). 'Return of the King' in Hammond's first state without the signature mark 4 at page 49.
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First edition of all three volumes of the greatest work of modern fantasy. While serving in the trenches in WWI, Tolkien conceived of these tales set in a "secondary World," for consolation and pleasure; they developed over a period of forty years into an epic narrative. 'The Lord of the Rings' has been read as an allegory for multiple good-versus-evil conflicts: post-World War I and the rise of Hitler; Christian myth; even the environment, with the Dead Marshes reflecting Tolkien's despair over the desolation wreaked by military technology.