The Hobbit And The Lord Of The Rings Box Set [Paperback]

Everyone knows the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings are wonderful stories, and I fully agree. The reason for my bad rating of this PARTICULAR edition of JRR Tolkien's works is that the books are riddled with typographical errors, some so severe that they change the meaning of sentences, effectively reversing the author's intent. One example: "The Breelanders locked their doors at night, which was also not unusual in the Shire." The word "unusual" should have been "usual"--i.e., the Shire Hobbits don't usually lock their doors at night. But exactly the opposite idea is conveyed by this typographical error! And there are many more errors where that one came from. I counted THREE errors on ONE PAGE! AVOID THIS EDITION at all costs!

As someone else mentioned, we all know the Lord of the Rings to be by the far one of the greatest works of writing of the 20th century. It is all a game we play with Tolkien, for he too took it much more seriously then any other Fantasy of Science Fiction writer ever has. He made up languages that existed in relationship to languages and dialects that we have in english, and thus created a nightmare for Translators. He told stories of all sorts of perils of creation, and made sure everything was done right. Thus, when an edition like this comes out, it is truly painful. For one, originally, Tolkien created some of the most beautiful maps of Middle Earth, spending time making sure that all of the proportions were accurate. He didn't just jumble down some lines for the coast line, for example. He spent many hours making sure everything was proportinate and made sense. However, sometime after 1988, Ballantine started to release editions of the triliogy with completely new maps, all signed by some Shelly Shapiro. In either case, these new maps were plauged with problems, from being too cartoony and unproportinate to having names of locations from the original maps done away with. The maps, from the very beginning, have been essential to the LoTR books, and having cheap maps made is annoying beyond belief. It shows a sign of disrespect from the editors. To me, it says, "People won't notice anyway. Lets make a smaller sized book with less detailed maps and save some money." If you truly want to expierience this epic (or history, more accurately) as Tolkien envisioned it (not some editor at Ballantine), spend some extra cash and either get a different edition or buy a good map (there is currently an excellent one made by Christopher Tolkien, which is much larger and detailed). Of course, were the map adequate, this edition still suffers from annoying miscopies and misprints and so on. Don't sell out for cheap editions. You've been warned.

The ONLY reason why I chose to buy this particular edition was because of the incredibly low price tag it carried for FOUR books. However, once the package arrived and I had worked my way past the first and second chapters (of the Hobbit) it became obvious WHY this particular printing had been such a steal.
For someone like me, who has read the ORIGINAL Hobbit (Unwin Publication), this edition was as close to a rip-off as one could get in the book-publishing world. Let me make a list here.

1. Typographical errors

2. The RUNES of the map are not correct either. It should read, "When the Trush Knocks", instead it reads,"Hwen the Trush Knocks"

3. The ENTIRE introduction by the author, (On Runes and their history, from where I learnt to read them 15 years ago) is MISSING! I wonder what anyone who reads this publication will think of Tolkien's runic writing without the authors guiding words.

Sadly, I have now lost the original Hobbit book (I lent it to a friend who lost it) so I will have to make do with the one from this boxed set. It's something. But it certainly WILL NOT PLEASE ANY FAN OF TOLKIEN.

If you are a Tolkien fan, or want to enjoy the TRUE magic of the Ring, DO NOT BUY THIS BOXED SET!!! This is strictly for the casual reader who cannot tell Tolkien from Eddings!

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