A Middle-Earth Traveler: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor

John Howe's work depicting J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is instantly recognizable, not only because he worked beside Peter Jackson in bringing The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to film, but also for the beauty and drama of his art. A Middle-earth Traveler is described as a "walking tour" of Tolkien's world, and indeed it does resemble the sketchbook of an artistic wanderer who delights in capturing quick images of the landscapes and people he observes. Some of the sketches later evolve into finished paintings, but many remain in their original rough but very beautiful states.

The book is divided into many chapters primarily dealing with landscapes and peoples from the Third Age of Middle-earth, with occasional glances back at earlier days in Valinor, Beleriand, and Numenor. I enjoyed Howe's landscapes, which are usually rendered in muted tones evocative of morning mists. I also liked his detailed architectural drawings, from hobbit holes to elven flets to massive stone fortifications in Gondor and Mordor. His depictions of hobbits, men, dwarves, elves, and orcs are admirable as well. While it is true that no one artist can completely satisfy every reader of works as complex and beautiful as those of J.R.R. Tolkien, John Howe along with Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith, and a very few others at work today come closest to creating an artistic vision which matches the literary vision of Tolkien himself.

With solid footnotes even the most casual follower of Tolkien's world will glean what these drawings and designs are all about. John Howe is such a masterful artist and illustrator that everything from sketches to full painting reveal his passion to create images to haunt, invite and thrill readers into the worlds hewn to such clarity of purpose that it's hard to resist falling into them from time to time.
This is worthy of ANYONE'S bookshelf, from readers of the fantastic, artistic reference and certainly for Tolkien readers of all types. some might quibble with the small samples of finished paintings but the drawings more than make up for it, like life studies of places he managed to visit while we can only read about them.

Placed other books for size comparison. Gave a few examples of the images inside the book, in general it is a satisfying book to read / look at and imo it is a good addition to your library even for only displaying.

I love John Howe's work but this book has two serious problems. First, it's riddled with typos and misspellings which I could look past but the second, poor print quality, I can't. The color images are so dark they are almost as clear as viewing the Mona Lisa placed at the bottom of a vat of molasses while wearing welding goggles. The pencil drawings that make up most of the art are the opposite. They are very light and almost uniform in their grey color this losing a lot of shadow and contrast. This makes the detail difficult to discern. Maybe I got a bad run? Haven't had a chance to reference another copy so don't know.

If you're a fan of middle earth art, this is worth adding to your collection. John writes like an academic and takes the reader to all sorts of places they might not be familiar with if their only experience is with the movies that he worked on. He is very talented with his pencils. My only complaint might be that some of the paintings (i.e. not drawings) are quite dark and difficult to see in anything less than a very well lit room - I'd have been happy with John leaving the paintings out & sticking entirely to drawings. Still, that doesn't stop this from being one of the finest art books I own & an excellent companion to Alan Lee's excellent LOTR Sketchbook.

This is a wonderful book. Very similar in format and size of the Alan Lee's Lord of the Rings Sketchbook.
The illustrations and sketches are wonderful as you would expect from any drawing made by John Howe.
The only bad thing about this book is that I wish this book cuold be bigger, so it could have bigger drawings to be able to see all the details of John Howe's great artwork. Althoug the majority of illustrations are pencil drawings, the print of some colored ones are too dark and too small. Anyway, I would recomend this book to any John Howe admirer or Lord of the rings fan.

This is a wonderful book. Very similar in format and size of the Alan Lee's Lord of the Rings Sketchbook.
The illustrations and sketches are wonderful as you would expect from any drawing made by John Howe.
The only bad thing about this book is that I wish this book cuold be bigger, so it could have bigger drawings to be able to see all the details of John Howe's great artwork. Althoug the majority of illustrations are pencil drawings, the print of some colored ones are too dark and too small. Anyway, I would recomend this book to any John Howe admirer or Lord of the rings fan.

The book itself is awesome, but the seller didn't mention that it was well loved. The cover was ripped and scratched in places. I can't even remember that I bought it used as amazon generalises an item across all sellers, and it's a bit sucky that we can't review seller specific. Anyway I loved the book. Just the overall amazon experience is not 5 star.

I don't know anything about Middle Earth but my daughter now wants to buy this book for herself since this one is a gift for another person. She was surprised at the detail and what is included. Great find!

Bought for my son to inspire some interest in sketching. Time will tell on that, but I definitely have been impressed by the book. I kind of suspected I’d have already seen most of the illustrations in other sources, but no, I haven’t seen more than 10%. A great collection!