Humphrey Carpenter "Tolkien: A Biography" Limited Edition, Leather-Bound Collector's Edition [Sealed]

Humphrey Carpenter’s Definitive Life of Middle‑earth’s Creator in a Luxurious Collector’s Edition

Easton Press, Norwalk, CT.  Humphrey Carpenter "Tolkien: A Biography". Limited Edition. Uniform forest green leather bindings with distinct cover designs and decorations. Luxuriously bound in full genuine leather. As New, sealed in the original shrink-wrap without any flaws.

Tolkien: A Biography

J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography is the official, authorized life story of the creator of Middle-earth, J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. Written by Humphrey Carpenter and first published on May 5, 1977, the book was created with unrestricted access to Tolkien's private papers, letters, and diaries.

Publication and Access

• First released in the UK by George Allen & Unwin and in the US by Houghton Mifflin.
• Built on direct interviews with Tolkien's family, friends, and colleagues.
• Includes rare extracts from Tolkien's poems, letters, and early drafts.

Key Themes Covered

• Early Life: Details Tolkien's birth in South Africa, his early orphanhood, and his upbringing in near-poverty.
• Academic Career: Follows his time at Oxford and his professional work as a philologist and Merton Professor of English.
• The World Wars: Explores his service in World War I and the loss of his close friends at the Battle of the Somme.
• Literary Creation: Traces how a casual thought on an exam paper led to The Hobbit, followed by The Lord of the Rings and his friendship with C. S. Lewis

Features

Includes all the classic Easton Press qualities:

* Premium Leather
* Silk Moire Endleaves
* Distinctive Cover Design
* Hubbed Spine, Accented in Real 22KT Gold
* Satin Ribbon Page Marker
* Gilded Page Edges
* Long-lasting, High Quality Acid-neutral Paper
* Smyth-sewn Pages for Strength and Durability
* Beautiful Illustrations

J.R.R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, and held these positions from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the informal literary discussion group The Inklings. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.

After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and, within it, Middle-earth. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings.

While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the tremendous success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings ignited a profound interest in the fantasy genre and ultimately precipitated an avalanche of new fantasy books and authors. As a result, he has been popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature and is widely regarded as one of the most influential authors of all time.

Humphrey Carpenter