Given the length of the book, paper heavy enough to eliminate show-through completely would make for a more cumbersome volume.

Overall The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Illustrated Editions are absolutely beautiful editions and I can’t wait to read them and to jump into Middle-Earth again. Readers will be able to follow the complete story of the Hobbits and their part in the quest for the Ring - beginning with Bilbo's fateful visit from Gandalf and culminating in the dramatic climax between Frodo and Gollum atop Mount Doom - while also enjoying over seventy full-page colour paintings and numerous illustrations which accompany this epic tale. It's one of the finest books ever conceived and was adapted into a fantastic trilogy of movies by Peter Jackson. It’s impossible – and unreadable and unwatchable, to be honest – to fit in everything in every single book or a movie or a tv series.Last spring or so, I found out that a new edition of The Lord of the Rings was coming out and that it would include illustrations by Tolkien himself, who in addition to being a philologist, Oxford don, husband, and father, was also a wonderful illustrator.

Still, some books prove their worth with their undiminishing popularity among people who are born after the artist’s death.Including brand-new paintings, this is a fully illustrated new edition of the forerunner to The Lord of the Rings.