New Tolkien Books:updates

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Thank you, davem, for rehearsing the argument about TH's status in the Legendarium. I'm sure there would be one or two Downers at least who are reading this thread who might not previously have been acquainted with the argument.

Don't mention it. That's what i'm here for.

But to focus on the new Tolkien books aspect of this topic, I doubt that any of us have access to Tolkien's mind at the time he wrote TH or recited it to his children (or at any other time for that matter), so it's a bit dodgy saying what existed in his mind. Millions of marriages might be headed for the rocks if we could read minds so easily--or possibly be salvaged--especially after the fact.

i think I quite fairly presented the evidence & offered up CT & Flieger as proponents of the TH is not part of the Legendarium argument & Rateliff as part of the oh yes it is lobby. Lot's of us have attempted to guess what was in his mind at various times, what his motives were, or why he even bothered at all, when he could just have got seriously drunk & found a nice comfortable gutter to lie down in.

And I'm ever so intrigued by that announcement in the 1937Allen and Unwin catalogue. I wonder who wrote it?

Here's the link you provided on Esty's TH birthday thread: Announcement of TH

Possibly Tolkien himself - sounds like his phraseology. Of course 'age of faerie' could mean 'world of the Legendarium' (Fairies at that time still being a name for Elves) - which is what Rateliff would argue, or it could just mean 'age of fairytale' where Elves & fairies rode Shetland ponies over the Hindu Kush...