New Tolkien book coming!

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I was just thinking of this book, and how its timing (I was still thinking of "spring, 2021") would line up nicely with this mini-Downs revival, but, alas, a check of the release date now says September 2, 2021.

Mind you, I do enjoy a nice getaway book for Labour Day.

We just need to keep this party going over summer

[Huinesoron]

Saw this a little while back and have just spent 20 minutes hunting it back down: an interview with Hostetter from July of this year, which discusses the book. Excerpts:

Though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, I started work on what would become The Nature of Middle-earth nearly 25 years ago, when I received a bundle of photocopies that Christopher Tolkien referred to as “late philological essays”. From this bundle I edited and published three texts in Vinyar Tengwar, that are also included (in more-or-less-differently edited form) in NoMe: “Ósanwe-kenta” (1998), “Notes on Órë” (2000), and “The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor” (2001). Some time after this, Christopher asked me to help the French scholar [Michaël Devaux] edit a set of late writings on Elvish reincarnation, which were eventually published in the journal La Feuille de la Compagnie vol. 3 in 2014, and will likewise be included in NoMe.

At long last, 'Owanwe-kenta' and 'Rivers and Beacon-hills' in accessible form! I've seen mention that the reincarnation writings have only been published in French before, so that's exciting. And - we have an abbreviation, straight from the editor's mouth. How appropriate that the last Christopher-era Tolkien book will be called (g)NoMe.

I can say that The Nature of Middle-earth will appeal most to those who enjoy the descriptive and historical parts of Unfinished Tales, as well as those who enjoy Morgoth’s Ring.

Well, MR is the best of the non-narrative HoME books, so I'm with him there. From the way he talks in the interview, I think there's less chance we'll be seeing drafts, so those hints about Numenor in earlier press releases could well be new material rather than early versions of the 'Description'. Which would be cool!

Current publication date is still 2nd September this year (er... a month away!). Oddly enough, that's the same date, though a year earlier, as the Amazon series airs. ... okay, so it's the anniversary of Tolkien's death, that's slightly grim. HoME XII was published on the same date in 1996, so I guess there's a tradition to be followed.

hS

[Mithalwen]

Ooh something to look forward too- I love Unfinished Tales perhaps best of all, which I know is a bit silly as it is dependent on the main texts but I love the minutiae and exploring vistas.

Incidentally am a little amused by references to HoME XIII -I bought the overall index so I already have 13 vols

[Galin]

A preview if the link works.


https://preview.aer.io/The_Nature_of...l=1&emailcap=0

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galin

A preview if the link works.

https://preview.aer.io/The_Nature_of...l=1&emailcap=0

So what is that site? Because it doesn't seem to be connected to Harper Collins, and the preview is... pretty extensive. Which is cool, but... there's a month still before the book comes out, why can I read dozens of pages?

... also, why in those dozens of pages am I finding that Tolkien thought it was a good idea to keep Elvish women pregnant for nine Years of the Sun? That's just O.O.

hS

[Galin]

Hmm. I didn't really take the time to notice. Someone posted it elsewhere and I posted it here.

I hope it's legal. I too was a bit surprised at the number of pages.

[Galin]

Contents:

https://books.google.fr/books?id=MDQ...page&q&f=false

Galadriel and Celeborn!

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galin

Contents:

https://books.google.fr/books?id=MDQ...page&q&f=false

Galadriel and Celeborn!

Weirdly, it initially showed me the full contents list, but has now trimmed it down to the first page... ANYWAY, the most intriguing looking ones were things like "Descriptions of Characters", "Dwellings in Middle-earth", and "Note on the Consumption of Mushrooms" (). Also "Note on Dwarvish Voices", which, I can't even imagine what would be in that.

The early sections seem to have a /lot/ of stuff on how he imagined the early reproduction rates of the elves, so I guess we'll conclusively be able to answer "were Finwe et al Unborn Quendi?"

(I can't remember what they were, but there were so many chapters which seemed to imply an answer to one of the Frequent Debates that I was surprised not to see "The nature of Bombadil and a precise physical description of balrogs" in there...)

hS