My '73 Ballantine's edition contains four books, The Hobbit and the three LotR books, in a red box with Tolkien's own drawings of Elven symbols and a Númenorean tile on it. The cover pictures on each book are Tolkien's own watercolor paintings:
On the Hobbit: 'Bilbo comes to the Huts of the Raftelves'
On FotR: 'The Hills: Hobbiton-across-the-Water'
On TT: 'Fangorn'
On RotK: 'Barad-Dûr'
I think it's wonderful to see that Tolkien was a talented artist as well as a great author.
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth.. .'
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