This
Lord of the Rings art series was created in the 1970s for a
proposed illustrated edition
of the trilogy to be published by Houghton Mifflin.
My
interest in Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" began
in 1965 when Bill Cavness read it aloud on Boston Public Radio's "Reading
Aloud" a half hour daily of readings from literature.
Tolkein wrote it to be read aloud and did so with his group
of English
writers in England as he was writing it. My son, only about
4 then insisted
that we stop everything and listen each day.
In
1971 my son, my wife and I spent several months in Ireland, in
county Donegal
first in
Glencolumbkil and then at Malin Moore. As we traveled around
the area it seemed to me to evoke visual images appropriate
to the trilogy
of the Ring. I had done a sketch or two before we left, but
it was after we returned that the ideas began to gel.
I
took some
of the
work to Houghton Mifflin in Boston and they appeared interested,
so on speculation I continued. The British publishers would
not agree to an illustrated version in the USA, so nothing
came of
it. One
by one I have sold off most of the drawings and where some
of them are now is a bit of a mystery.
