The above image, of which there are many versions online, is Barbara Remington’s original artwork, for the 1970s LOTR trilogy, as published by Ballantine Books.
It appears to be a single composite image, from which covers for the three sub-sections of the trilogy (Tolkien always wanted it to be one big book; but his publishers insisted it would be better as three) were extracted.
In the caption above I say I do t what the picture is… Well, it’s a map, obviously! But with a terrific illustrative border, by Babs. Was this produced as a poster? I must know! And, ideally, I must have it.
The detail above is rather similar to the detail I picked from the cover, at the top of this post. Which is nice, as it gives this little blog entry some visual and thematic consistency.
I believe, however, that my first exposure to Remington’s very enchanting style was this:
My dad had this book, in this very edition. I bought a cheap copy off Amazon, for myself, some years back. Not for the writing, which, frankly, I think is pretty dreadful (Orville Prescott thought otherwise!), but instead/solely for the terrific cover.