The first published book of Bilbo’s Last Song on its own has been shown previously in the thread, here is the paperback version. The book is illustrated by the artist Pauline Baynes.

The earliest recording of Bilbo's Last Song seems to be that of Donald Swann's performance at Church House, Westminster on 2 March 1977, at the 'Facets of Lewis' gathering held to mark the publication of C.S. Lewis's The Dark tower and Other Stories. The session was recorded, and later issued as a CD-R in The Inklings Archives (noted here), in a limited edition of 100.



The liner note for the recording states that 'Donald Swann's piano sounds very wobbly, and his playing ends abruptly because of a fault in the tape', but the piano sounds good enough given the general quality of the sound, and although the recording ends abruptly it does so at the instant after the song's final note, so nothing is lost.

The earliest commercial recording of Bilbo's Last Song is on the first of the three cassette tapes comprising Donald Swann's Alphabetaphon: An Alphabetical Trilogy - briefly mentioned here - on which Donald performs songs of his own composition and others he found meaningful or enjoyable, beginning (alphabetically by title) with Harry Chapin's 'All My Life's a Circle'. Tolkien's 'I Sit beside the Fire' is on cassette 2. The tapes were self-published on Albert House Cassettes, Swann's own 'label', in 1990.



Another rare recording of Bilbo's Last Song is on the second of two cassette tapes capturing the concert 'Swannalogue: An Evening of Words and Music by Donald Swann', performed at Southend-On-Sea on 27 February 1993. The song comes at the end of the full 'Road Goes Ever On' song cycle, sung by bass-baritone Clive McCombie and the Luthien Chorale, with pianist Patricia Williams. Donald introduces the music. The lyrics to all of the songs were included in the concert's printed souvenir programme.



John Amis's Amiscellany, mentioned earlier in this thread as a CD, was also issued on cassette.

Wayne

That’s very interesting, I was aware of the Alphabetaphon cassette, but not the others. Thanks for contributing.

A hardback version of Bilbo’s Last Song book was published in 2002, again with illustrations by the artist Pauline Baynes.

I have the blue-covered version above which I believe is considered a second edition. According to Wikipedia at least, it's missing some of the illustrations from the green-covered first edition.

The third version of Bilbo’s Last Song in book form was published in paperback in 2012, also illustrated by Pauline Baynes.

The final item I have is a promotional postcard for the publication of the last book.

Those are all the items I have, I do know of a few more items featuring Bilbo’s Last Song, specifically a jigsaw puzzle of the Pauline Baynes poster by the Underground Puzzle Company.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread, if anyone has anything else then please add these to the thread.

AndyBirdUK wrote:

Those are all the items I have, I do know of a few more items featuring Bilbo’s Last Song, specifically a jigsaw puzzle of the Pauline Baynes poster by the Underground Puzzle Company.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread, if anyone has anything else then please add these to the thread.

This is the Jigsaw Puzzle

And possibly of interest to some.

Auction Catalogue - Profiles in History: Hollywood Auction 26

Details here:

https://tolkienbooks.net/php/details2.php?id=1148