The Tolkien Treasury: Roverandom, Farmer Giles of Ham, the Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Smith of Wootton Major

Very nice boxset of little hardcover books.

Very beautiful hardcover pocket book set. Highly recommend for LOTR fans, especially in combination with the same sized pocket book set with The Hobbit, The fellowship of the ring, The two towers and The return of the king. Ideal for commute reading.

This boxed set definitely gets five stars. It comes in a sturdy box holder with four hard-cover volumes resplendent with colour Pauline Baynes' illustrations (except for Roverandom which has Tolkien illustrations). They all fit snugly and pleasingly into the case. The size of the volumes is small like classic hardbacks of old, but the layout inside has good-sized and nicely-space print on attractive off white paper. My only criticism is why was a fifth volume not included containing "Tree and Leaf" (On Fairy-Stories & Leaf by Niggle)? Then it would be a great collection of all the non- Middle-Earth books. (Yes you could argue to include the Father Christmas Letters and Mr Bliss as well but as they are more in the category of picture books I think they need a bigger print format.) That criticism aside it really is a delightful collection. Roverandom - unknown to me until recently I was surprised what a completed state the story was in but was never published. The paintings and illustrations by Tolkien himself though few, are delightful. The story itself is somewhat lacking compared to the others collected here. Most of the episodes revolve around Roverandom (a toy dog come to life) having adventures on the moon or under the sea, but there is a lot of "and he had lots of adventures there" types of sentences and the adventures that are described more fully are nowhere near as engaging as one might expect. Nevertheless it is wonderful that it is included in the collection. It reminded me a bit of Stuart Little (the book) which has a similar rambling style. The book has fantastic explanatory notes at the back and you really want to read it with two bookmarks to keep up with the background notes as you go. Farmer Giles of Ham - I think this deserves to be remembered as a classic. It really is a fantastic and funny novella. More lightly played that the Hobbit but it sits nicely alongside it for enduring quality. This volume includes the published version but also the first manuscript version, along with an outline for a sequel and notes. The ideas for the sequel don't promise much but it is fascinating to see the genesis of the story through to publication. Pauline Baynes drawings are magnificent. Smith of Wootton Major - is a beautiful, almost poetic story, which I really enjoyed revisiting for the first time since my childhood. It is a classic exploration of Faery by Tolkien and so Tree and Leaf (which in my old copy is actually included in the same volume as Smith of Wootton Major) would complement it beautifully. This volume includes a fascinating afterword, a description of the genesis of the story, a draft introduction that Tolkien wrote for the Golden Key, time scheme by Tolkien, suggestions for endings of the story, an essay by Tolkien about the story, various drafts by Tolkien and notes. All in all a fantastic collection to really get inside Tolkien's thinking in creating this story and the thoughts of Faery that lie behind it. Mystical. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil - I enjoyed some of these poems as a child but some were beyond me. It was a delight to come back to them as an adult with a greater appreciation of poetry and the styles that Tolkien was experimenting with. Tolkien himself did not consider himself much of a poet, but some of the poems in this volume are unquestionably great. Well worth reading them out loud to get the full effect. This volume is the biggest of the four, with extensive notes on each poem and in most cases full transcripts of earlier versions of each poem and when they were written along with the changes Tolkien made to make them fit with the Middle-Earth universe from which the poems were meant to have arisen. In short, if you already enjoy Tolkien's non-Middle-Earth writings, or you want to explore them for the first time, then this is money well spent and it will look delightful on your bookshelf.

Llegó en perfecto estado y son hermosos 😍

Worth every penny