A superb set of Lord of the Rings with a remarkable back story.

This set originated from a 1970s Aldeburgh charity shop - many of whose books were donated over several years by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears who would sometimes casually visit the premises to make donations. The shop marked their books with a stamp to denote their origin and this appears on the rear of each map in the volumes. Some books also carried the bookplate designed for Britten by Reynalds Stone which appears in volume one.

The books are first edition, twelfth impression of 1962 and have been superbly re-bound in quarter red calf, and are now housed in a recently commissioned custom-made slipcase decorated with handmade paste paper. A copy of the email from the Britten-Pears Foundation (2017) detailing the charity shop's activities and Britten's involvement is provided in the slipcase (see final photo).

These bindings are of superb quality and the text blocks are clean with no discernible faults apart from one very light crease to the first few pages of Vol 2.