Radio New Zealand

Long before Peter Jackson created his vision of Middle Earth on film, artist Mary Fairburn created her own pen and ink illustrations of Middle Earth. JRR Tolkien, who had always been against an illustrated version of his trilogy, was impressed by Mary's work. He wrote to her in 1968 and said he was beginning to think that an illustrated edition might be a good thing. But Tolkien was hospitalised with an injury, his family shifted, and the illustrations were forgotten. Now, thanks so some literary detective work by Dr. Paul Tankard, the world now knows about Mary's work and the pictures she produced.