The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle

First edition, first impression. 68pp, with coloured page decorations and borders throughout (page decorations by J R R Tolkien and Bryant). Red cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering and decoration front and spine. 4to. Cloth very gently pushed at spine ends, slightly rubbed on extreme corners. Two inscriptions inked on front free endpaper, one of which is crossed through. Minor annotation inked opposite the title page (noting the age of Tolkien). Also a little offset tanning at the base of both free endpapers else internally neat, clean and tight. In its original dust wrapper, decorated with stylised lettering, very slightly bumped at extreme edges. Dust wrapper is in a Brodart-style protective sleeve which has been taped to itself (but not the volume or the dust wrapper), and is itself a little shelf worn.

Donald Swann sets to music Tolkien’s poetic cycle; one of the melodies being based on Tolkien’s own tune and another of the songs contains the longest example of the language Quenya, thus assisting in the analysis of both Tolkien’s vision of middle-earth and his languages. The introduction expands on middle-earth and was, until The Silmarillion was published, the only published information on the first age of middle-earth.