The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings Gift Set: A Middle-earth Treasury: J. R. R. Tolkien (Pocket versions- Boxed): The Epic Fantasy Classic with Over 150 Million Copies Sold

You know the story of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, you know what it's all about so I won't go into it here. This is just about this particular pocket sized boxset. To start with, the set includes The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The box itself is of sturdy construction and is beautifully illustrated with the map of Middle-Earth front, back and sides. The back also contains the names The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It also has the eye of Sauron in the Ring design surrounded with Elven script. On the front is Tolkien's name. The sides also have the dragon design of Smaug as seen on the Hobbit book. All pretty wonderful to look at. Now the books. The three Rings books have the usual minimalist design of the Eye as has been used for some time. Personally, I prefer the proper artwork designs of many older editions. Beautiful landscape vistas, towers and character depictions. As I say, that's just a personal choice. The Hobbit cover, by contrast, uses what I believe to be a copy of the original cover. Beautiful and evocative of the story contained within. As such, it really does stand out from the other three books. Now, this may be an issue for many when it comes to deciding whether or not to purchase this particular pocket set, and that would be the size (see photos). Be prepared for very small books. I was quite surprised at just how small they actually are. Weight wise, these are probably going to be absolutely perfect if you have trouble holding the full size editions for any length of time. Surprisingly, the print is still crisp and clear making it quite easy to read. As a way of judging if you might have problems reading it, I have to wear varivocals so my eyesight is not particularly great. All books are hardcover and seem well made. I personally think it is a wonderful set to stand alongside my many full sized editions and box sets. This set is, in fact, perfect for Hobbits everywhere.

Nice pocket edition. Can do a good present

these are lovely

These are a lovely set of books and made a nice present for a big LOTR fan, however they were much smaller than I thought as I didn't see it said pocket sized! My mistake, I just presumed they would be standard size. I do wish there had have been a picture of one of the pages so I could see how small the text is but anyways they are a lovely set and I suppose a handy size to read whilst travelling.

A Quality read ...legendary

I've wanted a set of these books for a while but a lot of them are £60 ish which is too much for me to spend on books cause I'm a student and I have no money. I was overjoyed when I found this cheaper set. At first I didn't realise it was a pocket version so I was worried that they would be uncomfortably small. However I realised that what I don't like about the hard back books that I have is their massive size. I visited my local book shop and found the Hobbit that's in this set and found it to be a great size and the text isn't that small. I love the simple design of the dust covers and the box. The one problem I found was that the dust covers had a small bit of damage on the edge of them. This doesn't bother me books get damaged over time anyway.

Being a Tolkien fanatic and collector I naturally have more than one copy of The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. This is in fact my 9th copy of the LOTR, my oldest being a latter impression of the first edition. So why did I have to buy this set? Primarily because I find pocket editions of loved books irresistible. Many of you will have seen the lovely pocket hardbacks that OUP used to publish in the World’s Classics series. These are a similar concept but slightly larger. There is something deeply attractive in the concept of being able to slip a favourite book in one’s pocket and to be able to take it on a journey. The text is necessarily small in this edition but not so small that reading is a strain. They have the original first edition dust jackets which is a nice touch. They books are well made and, impressively, the bindings are sewn. The slip case is strong and well designed. Whilst I would not recommend this as an only copy of the LOTR this is undoubtedly a lovely edition and great quality.

So these books are actually quite a beautiful piece. They have a classic feel and look to them, resembling the design of the early editions. They're not too small either, as it may seem. What I would say is a "novel book" size. Thats all I have to say really, they're perfect for any book collection.

Nice little set! I see a lot of people complaining about the size, but I really like it. I am in my 50's and wear glasses to read some books but I do not need them for these editions. The smaller size makes them perfect for reading in bed without a heavy book and makes them perfectly portable if you want to read while waiting anywhere. I like the design too. Also great size for kids and at a decent price. I was worried when I saw someone had a misprint in the 2nd book of this set, The Fellowship of the Ring, since I just started that book. I checked my edition and it seems they have found and corrected that issue in subsequent printings. I have not yet read the 3rd and 4th book nor looked through for page printing issues but I will be doing that now that I saw these printing problems mentioned. I will update if I find any problems, but so far, so good. I purchased my set in January 2025. I know it is hard to tell from photos without comparison so many people are feeling deceived by the size, but it isn't as if they were trying to hide it. You just need to check the description. This is something I do all the time now with books on Amazon after accidentally ordering horrid Create Space editions of books in the public domain, so I automatically double check the details on every book purchase now, just to be safe. Looks like we will have another 18 years before these books enter the public domain, then I imagine all kinds of random editions will start popping up.

Tal y como se ve en la foto. El envío llegó a tiempo y bien empaquetado. No miré el tamaño antes de comprar, son pequeños pero están muy bien.

A beautiful little box set. The compact editions are delightful. A lovely addition to my library.

Great quality

Bezorging en klantvriendelijkheid perfect!