Title: The Shores of Faery
Artist: J.R.R. Tolkien

1915

The germ of The Silmarillion was already throwing out shoots when Tolkien was still an undergraduate at Oxford. In the midst of his finals, in May 1915, he drew this depiction of Kôr, the city of the Elves in the Blessed land of the Gods, Valinor. The white citadel is seen through the entwined branches of the Two Trees, bearing the light of the moon and the sun. It is clear from this painting that his legendarium, was already well advanced. MS. Tolkien Drawings 87, fol. 22r. Reproduced with kind permission of The Tolkien Estate Limited for the Bodleian Libraries exhibition Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth.

© The Tolkien Trust 1995