A gift from J.R.R. Tolkien to his son on his nineteenth birthday. Inscribed on the front free endpaper by Michael H.R. Tolkien, “Michael H.R. Tolkien From Daddy October 22nd 1939”. Reprint. Octavo. Publisher’s green cloth, lettered gilt. A very good copy, with Michael’s pencil underlinings throughout.
 
PROVENANCE: J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), given to; Michael H.R. Tolkien (1920-1984).
 
An exceptional and emotive gift from J.R.R. Tolkien to his son Michael.
 
In September 1939 Michael H.R. Tolkien volunteered for military service in the Second World War, but was told to spend one year at university first, which sent him up to Oxford that autumn.
 
His father was a Fellow at Pembroke College, and would have known that Fisher’s History Of Europe (the present volume) was a set text there. The choice of this, then, as a gift to present to his son on his nineteenth birthday, is particularly apt.
 
Books from Michael H.R. Tolkien’s library do appear in commerce from time to time, owing to his library’s entry into the British book trade in the 1980s. Each of Michael’s books bear his distinctive onwership inscription, but examples as poignant and significant as gifts from his father are few and far between.