"Mr. Baggins" - The Hobbit Reinterpreted...
 

"Mr. Baggins", a.k.a. "The History of The Hobbit" is now available for pre-order from Amazon.com. See here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/026..._email_title_1

At a hundred dollars and nearly a thousand pages, there's little other information abut the hardcover. No description, no artwork has yet been made available (at least as of my writing this).

From what I gather (and will stand corrected if wrong) this is to be a collection of Tolkien's work from late in his life re-working the Hobbit to bring it more "in tune" with LotR and M-e in general.

I thought I would start a thread for anticipation and discussion of this book...

Well, volume 1 http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Hobb...0447367&sr=8-1 came out at the beginning of this month over here & I just finished it yesterday. Vol 2 http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Hobb...0447367&sr=8-2 was supposed to be out next Tuesday, but according to Rateliff's blog he only just completed the Index on Sunday & he's been given a pubilcation date of the 18th of this month.

TI suspect that the edition you link to is the slipcased set of both volumes & the 70th anniversary hardback of TH.

The first volume is interesting (actually the bulk of vols 1&2 is the original manuscript/typescript of TH, but vol 2 will contain the attempted re-write in the style of LotR which Tolkien began in the early sixties).

Hi Davem, I bought Mr Baggins in Stratford about ten days ago. It is well worth reading, as it goes beyond just the history of The Hobbit, I enjoyed the part about the names of the dwarves ie:-Throw-in (Thorin) and also how Tolkien originally had Bilbo killing the dragon, there's lots of little bits of info that adds to our understanding.

His website will be www.JohnDRateliff.homestead.com I believe though there isn't anything on it at the moment.

I ordered the first volume via internet, since that's the least complicated way for me to get English books here, and it arrived last week. I look forward to reading it, though I'm not sure when that will be...

I am part way through Mr Baggins and am enjoying it so far - more than I expected since I find the Hobbit hard to read as an adult. I didn't pay that much for it since I got it discounted with the Children of Hurin. Gandalf being Bladorthin is nowhere near as odd as the Trotter / strider thing ;)

Rateliff's Blog entries on History of the Hobbit

http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2007/05/book-arrives.html

http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2007/05/fifteen-years.html

More from Rateliff's blog - Errata he's picked up on http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2007/06/errata.html