Illustrations, maps and other items related to the books The Hobbit, The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings are on display in New York until mid-May, part of an event billed as the most extensive exhibition of original material by famed English author and scholar J R R Tolkien.
Besides writing those beloved works, Tolkien (1892-1973) also produced drawings, manuscripts, maps and other designs that reveal his vision for a world populated by hobbits, elves, orcs, dwarves and other fantastical creatures.
Visitors enter the exhibit through a round door that resembles the front of a dwelling in Hobbiton, the home village of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins - the main protagonists of The Hobbit, a children's fantasy novel, and The Lord of the Rings, a three-volume epic novel, respectively.
The exhibit contains 117 objects, including letters, draft manuscripts, illustrations and photographs that give a glimpse into the mind behind Middle-earth in all his facets: as father, husband and author.
The exhibit's numerous manuscripts and letters also provide greater insight into Tolkien's craft as a writer, showing the process he underwent in striving to create a British mythology.
Tolkien conceived of Middle-earth as an imaginary period of our planet's past, a universe populated by hobbits, elves, dwarves, orcs, magicians and other fantastical creatures, including a race of beings that resemble talking trees.
The exhibit contains illustrations of some of these creations, including a purple- and blue-hued mural titled Eeriness that shows a precursor of the wizard Gandalf - one of the protagonists of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - walking through a dark and threatening forest.
Tolkien's scrupulous attention to detail also is evident in various maps he drew of the different places of Middle-earth, including the realms of Mordor and Gondor and the latter's capital city, Minas Tirith.
The renowned author's love of languages - instilled in him by his mother before her death when he was only 12 - led him as a teenager to start devising the Elvish languages he would subsequently develop in his novels and whose first traces are apparent in the exhibition.
Australian Associated Press
