Bored of the rings by Harvard Lampoon 1969
Condition considered acceptable - damage to the front cover, wear and tear present based on the age.
Childish, rude, clever & funny this book has delighted & outraged Tolkien fans for decades. Pulling in references to popular culture & fantasy literature as a whole this is an effective parody of The Lord of the Rings. From the dreary Goddamn (Gollum), to the feckless Arrowroot (Aragorn), the bungling Goodgulf (Gandalf) to the timid, meanminded boggies Frito (Frodo) & Dildo (Bilbo) no character is safe. Fleeing the Nozdrul, bored by acid-casualty Tim Benzedrine & harrassed by the minions of Sorhed the fellowship move thru a Middle Earth like no other.
This short novel was written by Henry N. Beard & Douglas C. Kenney. It was published in 1969 by Signet for the Harvard Lampoon.
The parody follows the general plot of The Lord of the Rings, including the preface, the prologue, poetry & songs, while making light of all that Tolkien made serious (e.g., "He would have finished him off then & there, but pity stayed his hand. It's a pity I've run out of bullets, he thought, as he went back up the tunnel..."). Names & words in the various languages are parodied with brand names which mimic their sounds. There are many topical references, some of which, like some of the brand names, are now dated. Regardless, it has the unusual distinction for a parody of having been continuously in print.
The book cannily includes five features which would be illegitimate in a serious publication:
-A laudatory back cover review, which on inspection was written at Harvard, possibly by the authors themselves.
-Inside cover reviews which are entirely contrived, concluding with a quote by someone affiliated with a publication, Our Loosely Enforced Libel Laws.
-A list of other books in the series, none of which exist.
-A double page map which has almost nothing to do with events in the text.
-The 1st text a browsing reader is liable to see purports to be a salacious sample from the book, but the episode never happens in the text which has no explicit sexual content.
The Signet first edition cover, a parody of the 1965 paperback cover by Barbara Remington, was drawn by Michael K. Frith. Current publications have different artwork, since the paperback cover art for Lord of the Rings prevalent in the 60s is now obscure to the point of being unknown. William S. Donnell drew the parody map of Lower Middle Earth.
An oddity is the German translation called Herr der Augenringe (lit. "Lord of the Eye Circles") which was done by Margaret Carroux († 1991). She's respected by German Lord of the Rings fans for her 1969/1970 translation of the Tolkien novel.