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THE LIFE LESSONS OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN'S HOBBITS

Sam Gardener

July 20, 2012 by Noble Leave a Comment

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This Deluxe Slipcase edition of The Silmarillion i

This Deluxe Slipcase edition of The Silmarillion is absolutely one of my favorite #Tolkien editions ever produced. @harpercollinsuk did everything right with this 2022 publication. There are 50 full-color paintings and illustrations by JRR. Gilt binding and a silk bookmark. Bound in blue leather and black cloth with stamped foil lettering on the spine. A full color poster of the Map of Beleriand. It even includes a booklet about the making of the Silmarillion written by Christopher Tolkien. Wow. I ordered this from @blackwellbooks. A stunner and a must-have for anyone’s Tolkien collection.

A peek at my oak & glass bookcase that holds my co

A peek at my oak & glass bookcase that holds my collection of NIB (new in box/shrink wrapped) Tolkien box sets from the 70s and 80s. I have been collecting these for many years and most likely have way too many.

Journeys of Frodo by Barbara Strachey is one of th

Journeys of Frodo by Barbara Strachey is one of the great fan-created resources for Tolkien lovers. First published by Ballantine Books in 1981, this collection of 51 incredibly detailed maps charts the journey of Frodo and his Companions from Hobbiton to Mount Doom. Each map features dates, distances and cool details like which important events happened in particular spots. You can find this out of print book on eBay for around $50.

Happy birthday to J.R.R. Tolkien! He would have be

Happy birthday to J.R.R. Tolkien! He would have been 131 today—the age of Bilbo at the end of The Return of the King. This is the portrait of him that hung (and hopefully still hangs) above the fireplace in the snugs of the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford—one of the meeting places of the famous literary club The Inklings. The pub has been closed for years (I took this photo in 2018) and its future is unknown. St John’s College—the owners of the building—are looking at various options for the pub’s future.

From a BBC online article in September 2023:
Shaun Gunner, chair of the Tolkien Society, said he was "encouraged" that the college was on the case, but that the pub needed to "reopen as soon as possible"

The Lord of the Rings 2021 Houghton Mifflin illust

The Lord of the Rings 2021 Houghton Mifflin illustrated edition with its One Ring inscription page edge art is so cool I have to keep the book the opposite way on the shelf.

I put together some new aluminum shelves in our ho

I put together some new aluminum shelves in our house today. Before I cluttered them up with a thousand other books and table top games, I wanted to see how my old tattered copy of The Lord of the Rings looked on display. I bought this red leather bound edition in 1980 with my Christmas money, and I have taken it with me on every move since then. I read the entire book out loud to my college girlfriend (now my wife) and then to each of our kids on separate readings. I’ll just keep it in this place of honor for a couple of weeks. It deserves that for all the joy it has brought us.
@modernshelving #tolkientribe #middleearth

It’s been 10 years since my book The Wisdom of t

It’s been 10 years since my book The Wisdom of the Shire was published. It’s an ok book. My heart was in the right place. (I could write such a better version now, though.) But if you want to read it you can get it on Kindle, in hardcover or paperback, or if you prefer to listen to an English dude narrate it with a lovely accent you can download it on Audible. Here’s the thing…all of the stuff I wrote about in The Wisdom of the Shire a decade ago feels like it is even more relevant today—the importance friendship and fellowship, the transformative power of gardening, the magic of enduring love; and perseverance and courage in the face of despots and corporate greed. All of those messages are in Tolkien’s works. And you don’t have to read my little book to find them. Discover the wisdom on your own. Delve deep into Middle-earth! #Tolkien #tolkientribe

By the way, the book was going to be called The Wisdom of Hobbits but the Tolkien Estate threatened to sue the publisher and so they backed out of my book deal. I was devastated. Crushed. But I wrote a letter to the Tolkien Estate’s chief counsel and told her what the book was about and that I would change the title. I guess the letter worked because a couple of weeks later my agent called me up and said, “You’re never going to believe this. The Tolkien Estate gave the publisher the all clear and the book deal is back on!” I was incredibly grateful to the Tolkien Estate, but simultaneously pissed off at my publisher for jerking me around and not going to bat for me. But as the great Peter S. Beagle (who wrote the intro to the Lord of the Rings and my book as well) said to me once, “Noble my lad, nobody asked us to be writers.”

Tolkien and the city of Oxford are inseparably lin

Tolkien and the city of Oxford are inseparably linked. It’s the place where he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings; and he and his beloved wife are buried in the nearby cemetery of Wolvercote. But Tolkien also taught at Oxford University for many years—at Merton College. This watercolor depicts the Merton entrance, festooned with clematis, and was painted in the late 1800s (around the year Tolkien was born in 1892). Any visit to Oxford is incomplete without a tour of Merton. And you can imagine Professor Tolkien walking around the venerable stone halls, or smoking his pipe in the garden, or gazing at the stately Merton College Chapel that was built over 700 years ago.

I have really been enjoying The Great Tales Never

I have really been enjoying The Great Tales Never End from @bodleianlibrarypublishing. This collection of essays about the two Tolkiens (JRR & Christopher) is a celebration of the Junior Tolkien’s Herculean efforts as literary archaeologist (and writer in his rights) to document and publish his late father’s work—work that spanned nearly half a century after JRR’s passing. Without Christopher we would not have The Silmarillion or the epic The History of Middle-earth. The Great Tales Never End contains a wide range of fascinating essays, from a detailed description of the lost 1950s era BBC radio dramatization of LotR, to an essay about Tolkien (and Christopher) as Middle-earth cartographers. The tome also includes the beautiful eulogy given at Christopher’s funeral (translated from the French to English by his wife Baillie). And there are heaps of reproductions of ephemera, like the invitation to Christopher’s 19th birthday in which potentially drunken guests are advised that they will carted home in wheelbarrows (hobbit-style) if they stay until the wee hours of the morning. If you are a Tolkien fan you absolutely need to have this edition for your collection. The book is well made—printed on heavy paper and includes a silk bookmark. #tolkien #middleearth #thehobbit

Here is a letter from #jrrtolkien from my collecti

Here is a letter from #jrrtolkien from my collection that only a handful of people in the world have seen. In the missive Tolkien mentions his friend C.S. Lewis, as well as one of Tolkien’s great passions: the Old English poem Beowulf. In the late 70s Tolkien’s biographer Humphrey Carpenter put an ad in newspapers around the world looking for letters from Professor Tolkien to be included in the book The Letters of JRR Tolkien. This particular letter was submitted but turned down for inclusion (swipe to see Mr. Carpenter’s kindly rejection letter as well as the advertisement). The letter was written while Tolkien was living on Holywell Street in Oxford in 1951–a short walk from where he was teaching at Merton College. The Fellowship of the Ring would not be published for three more years. The coolest thing about the letter is that Tolkien mentions his own dragon poem Iumonna Gold Galdre Bewunden (Old English for “The gold of men long ago enmeshed in enchantment). He would later change the title of this poem to “The Hoard” and it would appear in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil—the collection “written” by none other than Samwise Gamgee. Note the photo showing the letter’s watermark BANK MILL EXTRA STRONG which is one of the key indicators that this is not a faked letter from Tolkien; and the faded ink of Tolkien’s beautiful signature which naturally loses its pigment over time.

Dwarven #Lego dice tower I made for my kids years

Dwarven #Lego dice tower I made for my kids years ago for tabletop gaming. I used parts from the Mines of Moria set including the runes pieces from Balin’s tomb. #Tolkien

I love how my local @barnesandnoble bookstore #tol

I love how my local @barnesandnoble bookstore #tolkienfan writes the reviews for new Tolkien editions in the Elven tongue’s Tengwar script. Bravo!

This venerable edition of the Hobbit is a discarde

This venerable edition of the Hobbit is a discarded library book from Woodland Hills, CA. I wonder how many people read it in the decades that it was in circulation? How many nightstands did it sit on? How many backpacks was it carried around in? How many lifelong Tolkien fans did it create? The first date stamp on the book is 1968!

Made these Nazgul armored/articulated gloves for o

Made these Nazgul armored/articulated gloves for one of my kids for their Ringwraith Halloween costume: metallic paper, hot glue and old gardening gloves. #lordoftherings

Unboxing quite possibly the best #thelordofthering

Unboxing quite possibly the best #thelordoftherings edition in history from @harpercollinsuk. First of all, this Deluxe Edition arrived from the UK (from @blackwellbooks) in its own bespoke protective box inside the cardboard shipping box. The book itself is absolutely lux printed on acid-free paper with gilt edging. It is illustrated with more than 30 of #tolkien’s artworks, as well as two large fold out Christopher Tolkien maps. It has a facsimile of the “King’s Letter” that my family and I got to see in person at the @bodleianlibs Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibit. This was a letter, written in Tengwar script, from King Elessar (Aragorn) to Sam that Tolkien wanted in the appendix but was rejected by the publisher (fool of a Took!). It even has reproductions of the pages from the book in Balin’s tomb that Tolkien made by hand and singed with his pipe to look like they had been partially burned by nasty Orcses (as Gollum would say).
A stunning, magnificent addition to the plethora of Lord of the Rings editions. This one stands out as the absolute best of them all. #tolkientribe I updated this post with the correct publisher—Harper Collins UK.

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About Me

My name is Noble Smith. I'm a lifelong Tolkien fan, novelist, video game writer, documentary film producer, and father of two. My book The Wisdom of the Shire is published by Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press. I am currently Franchise Narrative Director for the Age of Empires video game series from Microsoft/Xbox. info [@] shirewisdom.com. Follow me on Twitter @ShireWisdom Follow me on Instagram @TolkienBeliever

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