J. R. R Tolkien Lohikäärmevuori, The Hobbit, and 50 similar items

Hobbit, First Finnish hardback edition illustrated by Tove Jansson. J. R. R. Tolkien. Lohikaarmevuori eli Eraan hoppelin matka sinne ja takaisin [Dragon Mountain, or A Hoppelin's Journey There and Back / The Hobbit, or There and Back Again]. Illustrated in black and white by Tove Jansson ?including the colour illustrated cover. "Astrid Lindgren, the author of the universally popular Pippi Longstockings asked Tove Jansson to illustrate The Hobbit. She wrote to Tove: ?God bless you for Toffle!! But who will comfort Astrid if you don?t agree to the proposal I?m now going to make to you?? "this will be the children?s book of the century, and will live long after we are dead and buried.? As Boel Westin writes in her book Life, Art, Words, the Tolkien project was a unique collaboration between two of the internationally most famous children?s book authors from the Nordics. It was a book that neither of them had written; the illustrations were by Jansson and Lindgren acted as editor. Jansson described to Lindgren how she absolutely wanted to keep apart the illustrations for the Tolkien book and the style she had developed for her own Moomin world. ?I have tried to free myself from my ?Moomin style? with its careful line-drawing and painstakingly filled surfaces,? Jansson wrote to Lindgren. She strived to interpret Tolkien?s characters in a free way and did not sketch with pencil underneath the felt pen, like she was used to doing in her Moomin illustrations. When she drew the characters of Tolkien, she made up to sixty different versions of every character before she was satisfied. Tove loved the ?horror? in the story and drew inspiration from her own childhood imagination, when illustrating Tolkien?s work. For example, her illustrations of Gollum were not what had been anticipated. Tove created a rather large Gollum, which made Tolkien himself realise that he had never described his size in detail ? and so, the second edition was amended to describe Gollum as a ?small, slimy creature?. In the end, Tove illustrated also the Finnish edition of this classic book, which ? despite the language barrier ? is hugely popular among the Tolkien and Tove Jansson fans. Tammi in 1973, 292 pages, 20.3 13.5 cm, in very good condition. J.R.R.Tolkien, Tove Jansson, Gollum, Moomin