The Lord of the Rings trilogy - J.R.R. Tolkien

I have annotated these three books together partly because Tolkien originally wrote them as one work but also because their story deals with all three. This boxed set is particularly lovely, including Tolkien’s original drawings and maps. Though I don’t often see them because of the dust-jackets, I also love that the cloth hardcover of each book also bears Tolkien’s icon of the Eye of Sauron surrounded by the gilded script that covers the ring in the story itself.

I cannot say for certain when I acquired this set of books. My parents had given me the set for Christmas of 2001. This was especially exciting since, as already mentioned, Tolkien’s works were iconic in my family. My sisters asked to borrow the books sometime around 2002 and at the time I thought nothing of it. But some years later (I cannot remember when), upon visiting one of my sisters I noticed a similar set of books on her shelf. Upon examining them I saw that the dust jackets were ripped and the pages were smudged. When I noted this, my sister buttoned her lip and attempted to hide a coy expression and I immediately realized that these were MY books! Knowing how much I valued this set, my sisters had grown fearful of my wrath after having damaged my books and, rather than admit it, had simply bought me a brand-new set and replaced it on my shelf, hoping I wouldn’t notice. The tale of this book is similarly appropriate: in terms of Tolkien’s narrative, The Fellowship of the Ring easily represents ‘departure’ since it is in this volume that Frodo leaves his home to follow in the footsteps of his uncle Bilbo and partake in a grand adventure. Even more interesting in light of the above story, is The Return of the King, which is titled for its focus on the restoration of an old line of kingship in Tolkien’s Middle Earth; though the books that I now own are new and unsullied, my original books will never actually return to me.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring. 2nd Ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1993.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Two Towers. 2nd Ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1993.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King. 2nd Ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1993.

Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie (reprise)

As with Dante, I have written on Peter Pan before, but I will include the newer collection entry even though some of the content is the same:

I suppose my experience with this book was the clearest indication of the journey that literary study would inspire me to since, I read almost the entirety of it while I should have been paying attention in my high school chemistry class in 2000. I can’t say that I regretted departing from the mundane world of equations and chemical configurations to accompany Peter and Wendy to Neverland. It helped, of course, that the book itself was a wonderful hardcover with rough pages and artwork that has come to epitomize the wild freedom that Barrie’s boy-who-would-not-grow-up represents. Even more appropriately, this volume had been a gift from the very same grandmother whose TV cabinet we had looted for her copy of Hook.

Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan. Illus. Trina Schart Hyman. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1980.