On Which The Movie Was Based

Is it the perfect literary gift — or the gift for a perfect illiterate?

The amount of wordage devoted in this eBay advert for an autographed paperback of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings to its being the basis for Peter Jackson’s trilogy could make you suspect the latter.

TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1971. Ninth printing of the one volume paperback edition. Signed by the author J.R.R. Tolkien on the title page in blue ink. This copy was signed and given to Fred Archer, one of the movers, who moved Mr. Tolkien from Bournemouth to Merton Street in March 1972, an incident recorded in Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of Tolkien. A near fine bright copy with a hint of use in printed wrappers. The basis of the film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Cate Blanchett, Andy Serkis, Ian Holm, and Christopher Lee. Peter Jackson won three Oscars in 2003 for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay for the third and final film ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’. Enclosed in a custom handsome dark green leather and cloth clamshell box

That newly-discounted $20,000 asking price still sounds too high for a pre-movie-novelization. Had the seller stopped after the reference to Humphrey Carpenter’s biography who knows how much high rollers might have paid?

One thought on “On Which The Movie Was Based

  1. Movie novelizations are a strange area. I had a copy of the movie tie in for FOOD OF THE GODS that didn’t mention H.G.Wells at all. It wasn’t Well’s novel, but one of them giant teenager movies.

    The book is worth what it gets. . And not even a first edition..

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