Length 96 pages Language English Publisher HarperCollins Publication date 23 Oct. 2025 (UK) Nov. 11, 2025 (US) Dimensions 14.6 x 0.9 x 17.6 cm
Tom Racine is an illustrator, and the book is mostly illustrations. He’s known in some online circles for the ‘Wizard Blues’ cartoons Doomed to Die is based on a series of daily sketches he posted on Instagram for Inktober 2024 and has redrawn for the book.
Doomed to Die: An A-Z of Death in Tolkien by Tom Racine is a small hardback gift book, featuring wonderful illustrations for each letter of the alphabet on the subject of Death in Tolkien. Each letter has one illustration per page, all hand drawn in black pen and ink. The drawing style reminds me of The Trolls by J.R.R. Tolkien in The Hobbit, however Tom mentions that it is an homage to Edward Gorey.
One of the great collaborations that never happened in the world of art and literature was between Edward Gorey and J.R.R. Tolkien. When I heard that Tom Racine was a fan of Gorey's artwork, as evidenced from his original series of Ink-tober illustrations, it was clear that the style of his pen-and-ink was well matched with Tolkien's works. HarperCollins obviously felt the same. Edward Gorey, born in 1925 was a renowned artist of pen-and-ink illustrations for his own books and for classic works of literature such as The War of the Worlds and Dracula, among many others. In a similar, but still in Racine's own distinctive style, it is perhaps a wish fulfilment that the Gorey style has finally found a place among Tolkien's characters as showcased in this book. From Gorey's famous cover for Bleak House by Charles Dickens,
and his Haunted Looking Glass, a collection of ghost stories chosen and illustrated by Gorey himself, Racine has taken that Victorian style and developed it further to illustrate his own unique book. it is refreshing and new, while paying homage to two of the twentieth-centuries best creators in their own fields.
Contents
The book is divided into three parts
One page each for the Letters A-Z (Tom was not able to find exact matches for every letter, and had to improvise for the Letters, J, Y and Z, but these are still very well done, and I really like the Letter J illustration). The titles also influenced the character selection as they start A-B, B-A, C-D, etc. throughout the book.
Appendices of Doom
Inspiration
Tom writes about the process of how the book came about, the Inktober challenge and posting them on Instagram and HarperCollins involvement (David Brawn) with publishing the book.
Details for each illustration
This contains a thumbnail of each illustration and some details about the contents.
I am really impressed with this book and would be very happy to give this a gift to anyone who has an interest in Tolkien. The illustrations are very well done, and the illustrator has a good knowledge of the Professor's works, which shows in the subjects chosen for each letter. I think there is a market for more new artists and illustrated books like this, as well as the standard Tolkien editions. Tom mentioned at Oxonmoot this year that he is working on a similiar volume of artwork, but this time the subject matter is Shakespeare.
Edited by Aelfwine on 2025-10-17 6:52:20 PM UTC Edited by Trotter on 2025-10-17 6:58:52 PM UTC
2025-10-17 6:51:34 PM UTC
I note that the array of thumbnails of the cover given in the links to the various booksellers shows three variations in the tengwar rendering of "the gift of Ilúvatar" above the book's title, in particular in the rendering of the name "Ilúvatar".* One of these is outright erroneous, while another is defensible but less technically accurate (as it ignores the long "ú") than the version seen in the copy that Tom Racine holds up in the video.
1) The outright erroneous version (seen in the thumbnails in the links to the UK sellers, in that to the "English Edition" on the William Morrow site, and in the inset in the still image in the link to the Youtube video) reads:
"The gift of Illuvatar"
(a mistaken spelling seen all-too-often elsewhere).
2) The defenisble-but-unsophisticated version (seen in the link to the US edition on the William Morrow site), reads:
"The gift of Iluvatar"
3) The correct version (seen on the copy Racine holds up in the video and in Trotter's photo) reads:
"The gift of Ilúvatar"
It will be interesting to see if any of the first two, incorrect, versions shows up on an actual copy (or dummy) of the book anywhere.
I'm trying to think of a defenestration-adjacent meaning for this, but failing.... Some kind of Latin-Greek portmanteau about throwing a book out a window? 😇
Inevitably there’s a typo in the book - ‘Gimil’On the page describing the entry for Legolas[1] - which was spotted when checking the ebook. It was before the books even arrived, but too late to correct them, and it will be corrected if we reprint.
The HC and WM copies were printed together, with a combined first print run of 35,000.
Edited by onthetrail on 2025-10-18 11:32:14 AM UTC
2025-10-18 11:31:04 AM UTC
I like this willingness to address such things from the publisher. Typos happen and even when we proof, our minds correct mistakes without us noticing in most cases. Thanks for the update Trotter.
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