The Hobbit Birthday Book
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
The Hobbit Birthday Book Details
This delightful birthday book features 12 full-color scenes from The Hobbit painted by Tolkien himself, as well as endpaper maps of Mirkwood. It is a charming gift that will help collectors and fans keep track of important dates. 12 full-color paintings; color decorations throughout; endpaper maps.
Reviews
If you're expecting any text in this, don't buy it. It's exactly as it says: a little book containing the twelve months of the year with a place for each day to record birthdays of acquaintances and has a Tolkien theme to it. How so? It has twelve of Tolkien's paintings, all taken from the story of THE HOBBIT (although, interesting enough, one called "The Mountain Path", is what appeared on the first hardback edition of THE SILMARILLION). When opening, you are first confronted with a map of the journey, then title page and copyright information, etc. I've bought this back in 1996 in Indiana, of course, not to use (I have a first printing to this -- though I feel that this won't be having a real big market, alas!). All the illustrations are colour prints, and whilst seven of these appear in the oversized paperback edition of THE HOBBIT, those are black and white, unlike the illustrations found in this book."Bilbo awoke on morning...": A raven, perhaps Roac son of Carc, Lord of the Ravens (much like the much more majestic Gwaihir the Wind-Lord) on a cliff, set against mountains. It is much to big to be the thrush (at least, that is my perception)"The Front Gate"*: the front gate of The Lonely Mountain, with water coming from it and smoke emanating the entrance, with the snow capped Lonely Mountain behind it."Bilbo Comes to the Huts of the Raftelves": The cover art to the 1970s edition of THE HOBBIT. Classic Tolkien painting and illustration."Conversations with Smaug": Has Bilbo, a mere shadow (so you can see him) with Smaug laying on a great pile of gold. Also, cover art for this book."The Hill: Hobbiton-Upon-the-Water" the cover art to the 1970s edition of THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. Another good illustration, with a clear shot of Bagshot Row."Lake Town"*: Shows the town built upon the lake, with the dock and barrels on the shore nearest you (bottom left of the painting), with a raft docking, and a boat in the water. Makes you wonder how boats crossed under the bridge that extended to Lake Town.. Must of have to gone around it."The Elvenking's Gate"*: A path leading to the gate of the Elvenking, with the bridge in entrance in the back, and the grand hill above it. Rows of trees on either side. Nice - much in similarity to "The Hill: Hobbiton-Upon-The-Water" and "Bilbo Comes to the Huts of the Raftelves"."Rivendell": At atmospheric piece, showing the beauty of Rivendell. Probably done before LOTR days or early in its composition, because there doesn't seem enough geographic room to have the complexities described in LOTR. Tolkien always work much better artistically with landscapes than people."The Hall at Bag-End. Residence of B. Baggins Esquire"*: The last illustration in the current larger paperback. Depicts Bilbo (a quite slim looking one, probably immediately after returning from his Grand Adventure, without much chance of his getting fat yet)."The Trolls"*: Rather odd looking trolls hiding in woods with Bilbo in the forefront. Very reminiscent of the illustrations of MR. BLISS."The Mountain Path"*: The frontis piece for the original edition of THE SILMARILLION (both hard and paper back)."Beorn's Hall"*: an illustration depicting the Hall of Beorn.*All these appear oversize paperback as are black and white illustrations.In conclusion, this is a nice little novelty item, but of not much artistic import or consideration. Being a collector, of course you wouldn't actually use it for its purposes. The colour prints are worth having, though I'd much rather them come out with an edition that collected all of Tolkien's published (and hopefully a few unpublished) paintings into one nice volume. PAINTINGS might be that, although I have not seen the book so I could not say. Novelty and nothing else. A "Yellow Submarine" novelty of Tolkien's literary estate, doubtless made for pure product.Is it just me, or does one ever get the impression that the Tolkien estate is, to some extent, in it for the money. Although THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH series is absolutely fascinating, was it totally necessary? But I won't complain or harbour on that point much - I am much glad they did it, and that is understandable. To truly appreciate the Labour of J.R.R. Tolkien, that did need to be published, and with excellent commentary by his son Christopher. The true question is little novelty items like these: we don't really need them, and it makes it look like they published it for product. This, the two maps for THE HOBBIT and LOTR, and recently I saw a tarot card game with Tolkien slapped on it. That was my biggest outrage, because Tolkien was a committed Catholic man, and in no way, shape, or form, would he allow an activity that calls on Satan for guidance for one's life be advocated by him. Personally, I hope that his children had nothing to do with the tarot reading game, and are aptly suing for misalignment or something or other. But sometimes, one can get the impression a lot of this stuff is published for the money, with a commercial aim instead of an artistic aim. Much of the posthumously published stuff Tolkien wouldn't have dared send off, because he was always revising it (that is part of the problem: he couldn't, like Niggle, make his painting complete, but always polishing). Much of the stuff in THE HISTORY is first rate stuff, and, like THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY series (with the exception on ANTHOLOGY 1, that was more of a historic record than anything), the people responsible for creating the art are probably the least qualified people to judge it. As I understand it, Christopher Tolkien finished THE HISTORY, but if he wants to continue publish stuff from his father's pen, go for it. Lets just not make it silly little novelty items, but real stuff, real meat. 3 stars for the paintings