Roverandom

Brand-new paperback edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy story about the adventures of a bewitched toy dog, written before The Hobbit.

While on holiday in 1925, four-year-old Michael Tolkien lost his beloved toy dog on the beach at Filey in Yorkshire. To console him, his father, J.R.R. Tolkien, improvised a story about Rover, a real dog who is magically transformed into a toy and is forced to seek out the wizard who wronged him in order to be returned to normal.

This charming tale, peopled by a sand-sorcerer and a terrible dragon, by the king of the sea and the Man-in-the-Moon, was Tolkien’s first full-length children’s book, written before The Hobbit. Now, nearly 100 years later, the adventures of Rover – or, for reasons that become clear in the story, ‘Roverandom’ – are published in this delightful new paperback edition. Rich in wit and wordplay, Roverandom is edited and introduced by Tolkien experts Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, and includes Tolkien’s own delightful illustrations.

Review

‘This is an old-fashioned story, yet it still speaks freshly today… would leap to life when read aloud to a child’

Independent

‘Lord of the Rings buffs will enjoy picking out bits of Nordic mythology and will relish Tolkien’s fabulous sense of landscape’

The Times

About the Author

J.R.R.Tolkien (1892-1973) was a distinguished academic, though he is best known for writing The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, plus other stories and essays. His books have been translated into over 80 languages and have sold many millions of copies worldwide.

CHRISTINA SCULL is the former Librarian of Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, and editor of The Tolkien Collector. With Wayne Hammond, they have written multiple Tolkien works, including J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, the three-volume J.R.R. Tolkien Companion & Guide, and produced editions of Farmer Giles of Ham and The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien.

WAYNE G. HAMMOND is the Chapin Librarian emeritus at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and the author of standard bibliographies of J.R.R. Tolkien and Arthur Ransome.