Description
For sale: a rare and exceptional book club edition, hardcover copy of The Book of Lost Tales by J. R. R. Tolkien. First America Edition stated, 1984 Houghton Mifflin. No Book Club statement, but no number line present.
The book is in Near Fine condition with clean, bright boards, strong title gilt on the spine, clean page blocks, tight binding, heavy spine tilt, lightly rolled spine ends, mild edge wear, and two rounded corners. The interior of the book is also in Near Fine condition with no marks, inscriptions, or any other signs of ownership. The end papers and the interior pages are clean and bright, making it an excellent addition to any collection.
The dust jacket is in Near Fine condition with mild surface and edge wear, and no price on the front flap. Looks great in a new Brodart archival wrap.
The Book of Lost Tales was the first major work of imagination by J.R.R. Tolkien, begun in 1916-1917 when he was twenty-five years old and left incomplete several years later. It stands at the beginning of the entire conception of Middle-earth and Valinor, for the Lost Tales were the first form of the myths and legends that came to be called The Silmarillion. Embedded in English legend and English association, they are set in the narrative frame of a great westward voyage over the Ocean by a mariner named Eriel (or AElfwine) to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, where Elves dwelt; from them he learned their true history, the Lost Tales of Elfinesse. In the Tales are found the earliest accounts and original ideas of Gods and Elves, Dwarves, Balrogs, and Orcs; of the Silmarils and the Two Trees of Valinor; of Nargothrond and Gondolin; of the geography and cosmography of the invented world.
Ships promptly in a manila envelope with book wrapped in both craft paper and multiple layers of bubble wrap.
