New Tolkien Books:updates

[davem]

Now, I'm not sure I should be posting this as I found it on another message board, but its posted by a friend of ours in the Tolkien Society, Alan, who we met up with at Oxonmoot. It was passed to him by Douglas A Anderson & is a press release from Harper Collins

Press Release

Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006
J.R.R. TOLKIEN'S THE CHILDREN OF HÚRIN TO BE PUBLISHED IN 2007

Houghton Mifflin has acquired US rights to publish the first complete
book by J.R.R. Tolkien since the posthumous Silmarillion in 1977 .
HarperCollins UK acquired the project from The Tolkien Estate in a
world rights deal. Presented for the first time as a fully
continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of The Children of
Húrin will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
with Elves and Men, dragons and Dwarves, and the rich landscape and
characters unique to Tolkien.

The Children of Húrin , begun in 1918, was one of three "Great Tales"
J.R.R. Tolkien worked on throughout his life, though he never
realized his ambition to see it published. Though familiar to many
fans from extracts and references within other Tolkien books, it has
long been assumed that the story would forever remain an "unfinished
tale". Now reconstructed by Christopher Tolkien, painstakingly
editing together the complete work from his father's many drafts,
this book is the culmination of a tireless thirty-year endeavor by
him to bring J.R.R. Tolkien's vast body of unpublished work to a wide
audience.

Christopher Tolkien said: "It has seemed to me for a long time that
there was a good case for presenting my father?s long version of the
legend of the Children of Húrin as an independent work, between its
own covers, with a minimum of editorial presence, and above all in
continuous narrative without gaps or interruptions, if this could be
done without distortion or invention, despite the unfinished state in
which he left some parts of it."

Having drawn the distinctive maps for the original The Lord of the
Rings more than 50 years ago, Christopher has also created a detailed
new map for this book. In addition, it will include a jacket and
color paintings by Alan Lee , illustrator of The Hobbit and The Lord
of the Rings Centenary Edition and Oscar ® -winning designer of the
film trilogy.

The Lord of the Rings was already acclaimed worldwide as the most
popular book of the 20th Century before the blockbuster films in
2001-3 broke new ground and inspired millions more to read J.R.R.
Tolkien's books -- an additional 50 million copies were sold, leaving
new fans wanting more. The Children of Húrin will be published by
HarperCollins UK in April 2007, and on the same day in the United
States by Houghton Mifflin.

Victoria Barnsley , CEO and Publisher of HarperCollins Publishers UK
said: "This epic story of adventure, tragedy, fellowship and heroism
stands as one of the finest expressions of J.R.R. Tolkien?s skills as
a storyteller. With a narrative as dramatic and powerful as anything
contained within The Lord of the Rings , it can now be read and
enjoyed as Tolkien originally intended, and will doubtless be a
revelation for millions of fans around the world."
Janet Silver , Vice President and Publisher of Houghton Mifflin,
said, "As J.R.R. Tolkien's original American publisher, dating back
to The Hobbit , we are extremely proud to be bringing this project
to Tolkien's devoted readership in the United States. Christopher
Tolkien has done a great service in realizing his father's vision for
The Children of Hurin."

[Formendacil]

Saw the two threads in Books before I got here... so I'm crossposting my reply:

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I... hardly know what to think here.

First of all, there is a certain incredulity. I mean, this almost feels as if it goes against the grain of everything Christopher Tolkien has done or said in the entire HoME. But, on the other hand, it seems to harken back to the earlier days of publishing the Silmarillion, when he took a bit more artistic license, and filled out some scrappy texts.

But still... after all these years?

As near as I can tell, assuming the story is true, we're basically just looking at a published version of the Narn I Chín Húrin- with the middle chunk that was missing in Unfinished Tales filled in.

Personally, I'm inclined to think this a good thing, if it's true, but hardly a necessary one. And I'm really, really confused as to... Why?

[narfforc]

Personally I would like Christopher to have done a re-edit of both The Silmarillion and parts of Unfinished Tales combining both with any further work he could have found. If all we are to get is what we already have, I would feel slightly cheated.

I am not saying this is the case, but between The Sil/UT/HoMe what else can he possibly be doing?

[davem]

My assumption on what it is likely to contain is, apart from the new map CT has created for it & the Alan Lee cover & illustrations, the whole Narn as we have it in The Sil & UT, a Prologue setting out the context of the story & hopefully the Wanderings of Hurin, either incorporated into the main text or as an Appendix.

I expect it to find its way to the top of the best seller lists - & it will be nice to see one of Tolkien's 'darker' works easily available to the general reader.

First of all, there is a certain incredulity. I mean, this almost feels as if it goes against the grain of everything Christopher Tolkien has done or said in the entire HoME. But, on the other hand, it seems to harken back to the earlier days of publishing the Silmarillion, when he took a bit more artistic license, and filled out some scrappy texts.

Well, CT has carte blanche as regards his father's work. Lalwende has given us the relevant part of Tolkien's will:

’Upon Trust to allow my son Christopher full access to the same* in order that he may act as my Literary Executor with full power to publish edit alter rewrite or complete any work of mine which may be unpublished at my death or to destroy the whole or any part or parts of any such unpublished works as he in his absolute discretion may think fit and subject thereto’

*unpublished works

The amount of work CT has put in over the years, culminating in this volume, is something we should all be grateful for. Hopefully it won't be too expensive - we've got Rateliff's 'Mr Baggins' out the following month...

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by davem

Well, CT has carte blanche as regards his father's work. Lalwende has given us the relevant part of Tolkien's will.

I think we probably all know that... what with all the woefully ruminating about what "could have been", had Christopher Tolkien taken a more "liberal" approach to publishing his father's writing. I'm just saying that this seems more in character with his publication of the Silmarillion and somewhat in Unfinished Tales twenty-five years ago, when he willingly modified and added to (albeit sparingly) his father's texts; rather than being in the spirit of the meticulous presentation of texts that we've seen in the HoME since.

Which makes me quite excited. A complete text, from Christopher Tolkien, is bound to be good. And coming AFTER his years working on the HoME, it should be able to avoid some of the more avoidable problems of filling in the gaps- as evidenced by the "Fall of Doriath" portions of the published Silmarillion. So I'm really curious to see how the "Nargothrond" chunk in the middle of the Narn is played out- whether we see much an expansion or addition to the published Silmarillion text. And, like you Davem, I'm curious (and hopeful) to see if "The Wanderings of Húrin" will make it in- and especially curious to see how much editting, and of what nature, goes on there.

Overall, I'm really excited about this... very excited! But it seems very "out of the blue" and a bit out of keeping with what Christopher Tolkien has done over the past 25 years or so. Is it perhaps an attempt to get out an "official" completed Narn- before Christopher dies and the texts go into the public domain? Or is it a resurgence late in life of a subcreatorly urge?

Or what?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I dropped in at Michael Drout's blog just now, and lo: his latest entry is about this very release. Wormtalk and Slugspeak

[Child of the 7th Age]

This is not a Tolkien book per se but a fiction book by James Owen with a print run of 100,000 copies called "Here There Be Dragons". It was released in the past few days. This one is certainly different! It features Tolkien, Williams and Lewis as characters in a 336 page young adult fantasy.

Here is a general description from the Tolkien News website:

The book brings together three strangers -- John, Jack and Charles -- in London during World War I, where they become entrusted with the Imaginarium Geographica, an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth and legend, fable and fairy tale." They must band together and travel to various mythical lands to battle an evil that is threatening both worlds (the real and imaginary).

As it turns out, the three main characters are J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams.

Movie rights were optioned for this even before publication. They were picked up by Warner Brothers and will be produced by David Heyman, who also did the Harry Potter movies. The publisher Simon and Schuster plans to release six more books in the series: one each October for the coming six years.

I was curious enough to order it, which may be a big mistake! We'll see...... It did have a good review from the creator of Ender's Game.

Has anyone picked this up to read? See here on Amazon for more information.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I think we probably all know that... what with all the woefully ruminating about what "could have been", had Christopher Tolkien taken a more "liberal" approach to publishing his father's writing. I'm just saying that this seems more in character with his publication of the Silmarillion and somewhat in Unfinished Tales twenty-five years ago, when he willingly modified and added to (albeit sparingly) his father's texts; rather than being in the spirit of the meticulous presentation of texts that we've seen in the HoME since.

Which makes me quite excited. A complete text, from Christopher Tolkien, is bound to be good. And coming AFTER his years working on the HoME, it should be able to avoid some of the more avoidable problems of filling in the gaps- as evidenced by the "Fall of Doriath" portions of the published Silmarillion. So I'm really curious to see how the "Nargothrond" chunk in the middle of the Narn is played out- whether we see much an expansion or addition to the published Silmarillion text. And, like you Davem, I'm curious (and hopeful) to see if "The Wanderings of Húrin" will make it in- and especially curious to see how much editting, and of what nature, goes on there.

Overall, I'm really excited about this... very excited! But it seems very "out of the blue" and a bit out of keeping with what Christopher Tolkien has done over the past 25 years or so. Is it perhaps an attempt to get out an "official" completed Narn- before Christopher dies and the texts go into the public domain? Or is it a resurgence late in life of a subcreatorly urge?

Or what?

My guess is that when CT assembled the Silmarillion, it was never anticipated that there would be so much appetite among Tolkien's fans for unfinished and many drafted tales and so he got the work his father so much wanted published in a coherent, if as he himself admits, less than perfect version. Also I think I remember reading that papers had been transferred to Marquette in a fairly haphazard way and he may not have had access to everything at the time he did the Silmarillion. Now that CT has done "his duty" and edited as a scholar with minimum personal input so much of the raw materials, maybe he is now devoting his remaining time to assembling tales from the Silmarillion as perhaps he wishes he had done origianally, and with the benefit of the work on HoME.

[Child of the 7th Age]

I was rummaging around on amazon and was pleased to learn that The Marvellous Land of Snergs has recently been reissued in an inexpensive paperback edition: here.

For the past few years, it's been completely impossible to buy this book at a reasonable price. Even battered paperback copies were selling for close to $100. .

This is a fun children's story, and it's very easy to see how some of the characteristics of the snergs rubbed off on the hobbits.....