Tolkien Thread (The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, etc.)

Today I've received a very tiny, but lovely, book with one small poem. It's called "Bilbo's Last Song (At the Grey Havens)".

There is a touching history surrounding the copyright of this booklet. Tolkien transferred it to Joy Hill, a secretary who took care of Tolkien's fan mail. The transfer was a gift to thank her for her work and for the time when she helped him when he broke his leg.

Because of that, it usually isn't included in one of Tolkien's other works. It probably is somewhere online, but I rather have that booklet. It's dirt cheap too.

The hardback pocketbook has about 32 pages. Each page has one or more beautiful color illustrations, created by Pauline Baynes. The dust cover matches the book cover. I.e. the same illustration is used. The dust cover contains some gold lettering, which is replaced by white on the book itself. The paper and print quality are great. The poem contains 24 lines.

I'm glad that I have this little piece of art.

Another one arrived this afternoon. Ghehe.

This time it is the "Tales from the Perilous Realm".

Again this is a luxury edition with a matching slipcase. The style is grey with gold lettering and a gold motif, designed by Alan Lee. The paper and print quality are good. A ribbon marker is present. It contains 50+ black and white pencil drawings, which are also created by Alan Lee. He created the fold-out color illustration too.

Because it is a 2008 edition, none of the features of the "The Tolkien Treasury" (the first boxed set described in my previous post) are present. However, that means that this time all the content is not interrupted by an editor. What is included is the "On Fairy-stories" essay, also without interruptions of an editor. That means you can read the unedited versions first, before delving into the deep, using other books.

The book contains:
- "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil".
- "Farmer Giles of Ham".
- "Roverandom".
- "Smith of Wootton Major".
- "Leaf by Niggle".
- "On Fairy-stories".

There are 16 poems in this version of "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil". Two additional ones can be found in the earlier mentioned boxed set. Two other poems found their way into "The Book of Lost Tales 1". A fifth one can be found in the "The Annotated Hobbit". There is an expanded version of the "On Fairy-stories" essay, released in a 2014 book ("Tolkien On Fairy-stories").

Tonight I received my last planned slipcased luxury edition. There are more such books, but none (except one) are about Middle-earth, which is my main interest. The remaining one is Robert Foster's "The Complete Guide to Middle-earth (The Definitive Guide to the World of J.R.R. Tolkien)". That sounds like a mouthful, and I think it is not worth it. The book contains several errors and inaccuracies, which already existed in the 2003 edition, and which Mr Foster has chosen not to fix in the 2022 edition. Also, it doesn't seem to be that definitive, because he is supposedly working on adding material from "Unfinished Tales". That is bizarre, because that title was already available since 1980. Too bad, because Ted Nasmith's illustrations in the guide are awesome.

The one that came today was "Beren and Lúthien", edited by Christopher Tolkien.

This luxury edition is green, with gold lettering and a motif, designed by Alan Lee. The paper and print quality are great. As usual a silk ribbon marker is present. There are 9 color illustrations and many black and white drawings (at the start and end of a chapter). These too are created by Alan Lee. There is no index, but Christopher included a helpful 10 page "List Of Names". He also included a mini dictionary of words, which may aid the modern reader.

The book contains tales and poems around the fate that shadowed the love of the mortal Beren and the immortal Lúthien. Throughout the years Tolkien changed the story, but not the essence of it. First his son gives the original version and later presents the changes made in later times. These texts are scattered throughout various locations in the legendarium, but his son edited it to the least obtrusive way possible.



Then 3 paperbacks arrived.

The first one is "J.R.R. Tolkien - A Biography" by Humphrey Carpenter, who was given unrestricted access to all Tolkien's papers and who interviewed his family and friends.

The second one is "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien", edited by the same Humphrey Carpenter, with the help of Christopher Tolkien. This book is important, because it is referenced by many other Tolkien books.

The last one is "The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays", edited by Christoper Tolkien. The book is important, because it too is referenced by many others. It contains 9 lectures, from which 2 are especially relevant to his Middle-earth work. These two are expanded in their own books ("On Fairy-Stories" and "A Secret Vice"), which I hope I can get later.

It has been confirmed that there will be a new revised and expanded release of Humphrey Carpenter's "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien", which will be available in November 2023. It will contain more than 150 additional letters. The hardback edition will be £30. People are already speculating what it would mean for other titles based on the letters.


Source: Amazon UK.

Edit: Some more related news...

The Tolkien Collectors Guide have even more information on about 1000 published and unpublished letters. A live stream will be held on Friday with more information.



Source: Guide To Tolkien's Letters.

Today I got "J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century", by Professor Tom Shippey.

My first impression is that it is a thorough "making of" Tolkien's books. It is written for everyone, who is interested in Tolkien's process of writing "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Silmarillion".

From what I understand is that this book is targeted to a large audience, and has a similar content to "The Road to Middle-earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology", written by the same author. However that book is more academic and in-depth.

The 347 page paperback, also contains a list of references and an index.

I don't usually buy the many special editions of Tolkien's main books, containing illustrations. But if those are illustrated then that is a bonus. Instead I buy books that explicitly feature Tolkien's art to compliment his writings. I have several of those and they are great, but these cannot compare to what I have received today.

First impressions: The two books that arrived today exceeded my expectations in every way. I am in awe.

Let me first tell you what the two books are about.

On June the first 2018 the Bodleian Library, the main research library of the University of Oxford, opened a Tolkien exhibition, showing its large number of Tolkien documents, manuscripts and art. At the same time they published two books about that exhibition.

The first one is called "Tolkien: Treasures", edited by Catherine McIlwaine, who is the Tolkien archivist at the Bodleian Library.

I read that the book was supposed to be a paperback, but it is larger than that and doesn't feel cheap at all, even though it only costs about the same as a regular paperback. The paper quality is superb, as is the print quality. The book weighs 470g (16.5oz), which is a lot, because it only contains 144 pages! Nothing feels cheap. If you see gold text on the cover (the outside and the inside) is embossed. It is a great introduction to Tolkien's life, his art, and his writings. Don't expect the 144 pages to contain mostly text. No. The majority are beautiful color illustrations.

The book above is meant as a companion to the next one.

The second book is called "Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth", edited by the same Catherine McIlwaine.

That book is a huge and heavy hardback. The book has no dust cover, but it is illustrated by one of Tolkien's illustrations in color. I like that, because I have never understood the attraction of dust covers. Again, the paper quality is superb, and so is the print quality. This 416 page book weighs 1855g (16.4oz). About half of those pages are text and the other half are usually full page color illustrations. This is not the collector's edition, but they could have fooled me, because every detail about this book is stunning.

The book covers the same topics as the first one, but is much more in-depth. This time it has the form of the exhibition's catalogue ordered by the following topics:
- Reading Tolkien.
- Childhood.
- Student Days.
- Sheer Invention.
- The Silmarillion.
- The Professor's Study.
- The Hobbit.
- The Lord of the Rings.
- Mapping The Lord of the Rings.

The book starts with a number of essays:
- "J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch" by Catherine McIlwaine.
- "Tolkien and the Inklings", by John Garth.
- "Faërie: Tolkien's Perilous Land", by Verlyn Flieger.
- "Inventing Elvish", by Carl F. Hostetter.
- "Tolkien and 'that noble northern spirit'", by Tom Shippey.
- "Tolkien's Visual Art", by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull.

The book ends with the following:
- Contributors.
- Acknowledgements.
- Select Bibliography.
- Picture Credits.
- Exhibition Items.
- Index.

I am very happy with these two books! Wow!

This afternoon two art books arrived.

The first one is "A Middle-earth Traveller: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor" by John Howe.

The 192 page hardback has a dust cover with embossed gold text on a beautiful color illustration of Gandalf in a landscape. Removing it, shows the same illustration, but this time without any lettering. I prefer that one. The print and font quality is great. Often the text is organically wrapped next to the images. Usually a page contains one or more images. I think there are more illustrations than pages.

John Howe shows illustrations and sketches about any aspect of Middle-earth. From Melkor to Ungoliath, from Lake Town to Meduseld, from carts to tools. All of those are stunning. He also mentions those made for the two movie series, in which he was a conceptual artist.



The second one is "The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook" by Alan Lee.

The 192 page hardback has an illustrated dust cover with embossed text and the illustration in the center has a plastic coating. The hardback without the cover is identically illustrated, but isn't embossed and doesn't have the coating. This time too the paper and print quality is great. Again, a page contains one or more images. Officially there are about 150 illustrations, but at a first glance there must be more.

Like the title implies, it mainly covers "the Lord of the Rings". He writes about what goes into illustrating the books and, mostly, the work he did for the movies as a conceptual artist. It's great to see his work and his commentary.

Today a paperback arrived, called "Tolkien and the Great War (the Threshold of Middle-earth)" by John Garth.

It is considered a given that WW1 greatly influenced Tolkien's works. The book is about him and his friends during that time and explains why. It also mentions his religion, which plays a part. That latter part was omitted in the movie "Tolkien", which used this book as its source.

A friend saw that I needed a scarecrow to get rid of the pigeons on my balcony. He said that he bought one for himself at the same time, but that the plastic raven didn't work. The pigeons sat right next to it. Ghehe. He brought it anyway as a present. He figured it would fit nicely on my black Tolkien bookcase. When he put it there on top, I giggled and shouted: "Hide! Crebain from Dunland!" Because he is not a Tolkien fan he awkwardly looked at me. He had no idea what I was talking about.

Anyway... Two more items arrived.

Yesterday I received the "Sindarin-English & English-Sindarin Dictionary" by C.M. Carpenter.

This is a Sindarin/neo-Sindarin dictory, in which the author clearly states the source of each word in the list. I am still waiting for another book, which describes the languages in detail, but this paperback is a nice start.



Today an empty journal arrived with a hardcover showing Tolkien's "Bilbo comes to the Huts of the Raft-elves" illustration. You can see Bilbo sitting on top of a barrel as it floats down the forest river. It contains 160 ruled pages and it has a ribbon marker. The booklet is published by the Bodleian Library, which contains all of Tolkien's documents, writings and artwork (packed in about 500 archival boxes). The quality of the journal is great.

Am I going to use it? Nah. Don't think so. I just thought it was a nice item to own.

There is a little story behind the illustration. It was Tolkien's favorite watercolor and he wished for it to be included in "the Hobbit". He was disappointed when it was omitted from the first American edition.

Three more to go. One will arrive next week and another in November. That will most likely complete the collection for now. There are more Tolkien books, but I am not interested in those.

This one is called "The Great Tales Never End: Essays in Memory of Christopher Tolkien", edited by Catherine McIlwaine and Richard Ovenden.

The 232 page hardcover has under the dust jacket a dark blue cover with gold lettering. The paper and print quality is great. The book comes with a dark blue ribbon marker. The book is richly illustrated in color and black and white.

This book, like the title implies, is about Tolkien's son, who was responsible for editing his father writings in such a way that it was possible to release many titles for posthumous publication. Without him there would be no "Tolkien studies". Note that the initials "CJRT", as seen on maps, indicates that those were drawn by Christopher. Catherine McIlwaine is the archivist of all Tolkien's documents and art at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Richard is the director of that library since 2014. No idea what he contributed to the book. Most of the authors of the 11 essays either worked with Christopher or were close to him.