A Tolkien Tapestry: Pictures to accompany The Lord of the Rings
August 29, 2011 3:32 AM   Subscribe

A Tolkien Tapestry: Pictures to accompany The Lord of the Rings
Exactly 50 years ago the artist Cor Blok created about 140 illustrations to accompany The Lord of the Rings, he visited Tolkien who liked his art and bought 3 pieces - the only artist who ever sold his art to Tolkien. In his letters Tolkien once said that if ever an illustrated The Lord of the Rings could be created it would have been Cor Blok who would receive the job. Over the last 5 years I traced back all Cor Blok's art and brought it together in a book called A Tolkien Tapestry: Pictures to accompany The Lord of the Rings that will be released this week by HarperCollins.

Some five years ago I talked to Cor Blok and embarked on a mission to track down his art, since most were sold and lost. They were all over the world, no one knew how much there were and how they looked like. Still I kept to my mission and managed to trace them back (except a few which are lost forever) and managed to scan all of them and in my passion managed to convince both the artist Cor Blok, the Tolkien publisher HarperCollins and the Tolkien family to get a book out to show all the illustrations. It was a fun project that did cost me all of my free time, but I enjoyed every single minute of it. This week, the first of September, this project will see the light and will be released by HarperCollins. It has received the title: A Tolkien Tapestry: Pictures to accompany The Lord of the Rings. The name comes from the general idea of Cor Blok to create a tapestry (just like the famous Bayeux Tapestry) and not just to illustrate the book.
Role: Editor, researcher
posted by TolkienLibrary (5 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite

Thanks odinsdream... that is indeed how I felt about it!
posted by TolkienLibrary at 7:55 AM on August 29, 2011


The second image is being used as the cover for the book and was the one that hung in the hall of Tolkien, so every person visiting the professor saw this...
posted by TolkienLibrary at 12:32 PM on August 30, 2011


Wow, that looks amazing. Will it be published in the US? Amazon just has a "notify me when this is available" button up right now.
posted by Aznable at 12:33 PM on August 30, 2011


Well it will be released in the UK now and know it will be released in Canada as well... normally US always follows a bit later, maybe october because I know then we will also get a French translation and possibly a German, Spanish and Italian as well. We will see... I do get some author copies, and have pre-ordered some extra from amazon.co.uk. But I'm especially looking forward to the limited edition! I did sign the tip in paper, but have not seen the end result yet!
posted by TolkienLibrary at 12:41 PM on August 30, 2011


I did receive quality control copies in English and French yesterday and I'm soooo happy... the book really looks nice and i'm so pleased with the result. It truly brings Cor Blok's art as I had imagined it. Hope he likes the result to.
posted by TolkienLibrary at 4:55 PM on September 6, 2011


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