A Middle-Earth Traveler: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor

Breathtaking gift for a Tolkien lover!! I love the illustrations so much!!

Really fantastic images in every sense of the word. Beautiful and thoughtfully executed. Design and details that feel like a first hand account.I would have liked to learn more about John Howe’s approach, his creative process, what he finds important in drawing, etc. But this books know what it wants to be. Which I can appreciate.

John Howe's work depicting J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is instantly recognizable, not only because he worked beside Peter Jackson in bringing The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to film, but also for the beauty and drama of his art. A Middle-earth Traveler is described as a "walking tour" of Tolkien's world, and indeed it does resemble the sketchbook of an artistic wanderer who delights in capturing quick images of the landscapes and people he observes. Some of the sketches later evolve into finished paintings, but many remain in their original rough but very beautiful states.The book is divided into many chapters primarily dealing with landscapes and peoples from the Third Age of Middle-earth, with occasional glances back at earlier days in Valinor, Beleriand, and Numenor. I enjoyed Howe's landscapes, which are usually rendered in muted tones evocative of morning mists. I also liked his detailed architectural drawings, from hobbit holes to elven flets to massive stone fortifications in Gondor and Mordor. His depictions of hobbits, men, dwarves, elves, and orcs are admirable as well. While it is true that no one artist can completely satisfy every reader of works as complex and beautiful as those of J.R.R. Tolkien, John Howe along with Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith, and a very few others at work today come closest to creating an artistic vision which matches the literary vision of Tolkien himself.

I bought this as a gift for a LOTR loving friend but I found myself flipping through every page before I could bring myself to wrap it up because it was so beautifully presented and engaging! I now plan to buy it again, this time to keep for myself!

I bought this because I love the lord of the rings trilogy and the hobbit trilogy. The movies are exceptionally done and I absolutely love the movies.

The book is beautiful and is a treat for lovers of The Lord of the Rings series, BUT Amazon packaged the book very poorly and the cover was torn in two places. The book was just thrown in a too big box with nothing to keep it from being tossed around. BUY THE BOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE OTHER THAN AMAZON!

The book is amazing, but the outer cover was ripped up and it was just loose in a large box with no wrapping or anything. Kind of a bummer for such a great book.

I love this book. I found it to be as described-it's the author's sketches for film and just apparently to fill out the way things looked in his own head. There is some dialog- not much. But in reading the description of the book, it's what I expected. To me it's one of those things you look at, put aside, and then pick up again. I am enjoying it thoroughly. The book seems well made, with clear illustrations.