The world of Middle-Earth has a magical appeal that breaks across barriers of age and nation. Now the unforgettable atmosphere, the romance and the inspiration of the great epic, The Lord of the Rings, can be experienced through the vision of the artist, Joan Wyatt, in a series of paintings, all reproduced here for the first time. Hobbits and Ents, Balrogs and Elves, the excitement of the Watcher on the Water sending out his multiple tentacles or the Riders of Rohan in pursuit of the Orcs, the grandeur of the Great Hall Meduseld of the Rohirrim or the city of Minas Tirith, the poignant farewell of Sam and Frodo - these and many other scenes and characters are conjured up and brought to life. Respondng to what she describes as Tolkien's marvellous descriptions, Joan Wyatt began painting her illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in 1974 in the studio she had built in the walled garden of her eighteenth-century cottage in Kent: her chosen medium was goache. Jessica Yates, (at the time of publishing) the Secretary of the Tolkien Society in Great Britain, has provided an introduction and commentaries on all the paintings.
