THE HOBBIT AND THE LORD OF THE RINGS SKETCHBOOKS

First edition. Two volumes. Limited edition. Signed by the artist. Publisher's original sage green and brown cloth with titles in gilt to the spines and to the upper boards, with colour illustrations onlay to the upper boards. Housed in the Alan Lee illustrated card slipcase. Green and gold silk page markers. Illustrated by Alan Lee throughout with line drawings and watercolour illustrations of Tolkein's iconic Middle Earth setting and characters. A fine set, the bindings square and firm, bright and fresh. The contents are clean throughout, and without previous owners' inscriptions or stamps. Housed in the in the near fine, structurally sound slipcase, which is lightly rubbed to the extremities. Not price-clipped (£75 to the rear board of slipcase).

Issued in a deluxe edition of 3000 copies from which this example is number 2266 and signed by illustrator Alan Lee in black ink on the limitation page. Alan Lee is one of the most celebrated living illustrators of myth and fantasy: a recipient of the Kate Greenaway Medal, Lee was already an established illustrator of Tolkien when he was chosen to be the concept artist for the hugely successful 'The Lord of the Rings' film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction. Outside of the author's own, Lee's illustrations have become the most admired and recognisable renderings of Middle-earth and its inhabitants.