This was just published today, though not for the first time: Tolkien's treatment of the Kullervo story from the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, was previously published in the Journal of Tolkien Studies, so is not (as I at first hoped it might be) eligible for next year's Hugos (probably in the Best Short Story category). To be honest, even if ( Read more... )

Flieger's Tolkien analysis was recommended to me last year, and this is her most popular book (also seems to be the only one available in ebook format). I found it very interesting. I was less convinced by her strong thesis, that Tolkien's core message is to do with splintered light v darkness, but rather more so by her incidental detail, that when ( Read more... )

A collection of Tolkien short pieces, including his aesthetic manifesto, "On Fairy Stories"; the allegorical story "Leaf by Niggle"; and his verse drama "The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son ( Read more... )

I'm sorry to say that this simply recycles text from Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia without even the benefit of the illustrations. As before, separate entries for (eg) Amon Amarth, Mount Doom and Orodruin despite all being the same thing, with no cross-referencing internally or to the actual works. The introduction promises to bring in some ( Read more... )

There are sometimes diminishing returns in publishing material that a long-dead writer never saw fit for publication; sometimes, when the work is put away in a drawer for the rest of the creator's life, it is the right decision. Adam Roberts has written of his disappointment with this publication of Tolkien's translation of Beowulf, though I ( Read more... )

I'm a complete glutton for Tolkieniana (particularly by Shippey), as you may have noticed, and the day I finished this was also the day I spotted that Tolkien's translation of Beowulf is at long last available in the shops, so I think I know where I'm going next. This is, however, not a book for beginners - it's a text in dialogue with Tolkien (a ( Read more... )

A very interesting collection of essays about Tolkien, of which the two standout pieces are "Men, Halflings, and Hero Worship" by Marion Zimmer Bradley, about love and heroism and how they apply to LotR, and "The Road Back to Middle-earth" by Tom Shippey, unlike the others specially commissioned for this volume, describing in detail the differences ( Read more... )

The second paragraph from the third section of the Völsungakviða en Nýja:
Long ruled Sigmund,
sire and uncle;
Sinfjótli sat
at his side proudly.
There towered the tree,
tall and ancient,
birds in the branches
were blithe again.
One (well, actually two) of Tolkien's works that he never expecetd to see published - a translation into modern English, but ( Read more... )

This will never be more than minor Tolkieniana for the completist, but it is awfully pleasing to see how what started as just a couple of short notes to the oldest Tolkien children in 1920 had turned into heavily illustrated stories about the adventures of the North Polar Bear and battles against the evil goblins by the time the youngest of the ( Read more... )

This isn't so much a second volume as a second half of Rateliff's book; the first numbered page is 469! So the two really need to be read as a single unit. Having recovered from this discovery, I still enjoyed the detail on Tolkien's construction of the original text of The Hobbit, the subsequent revisions to bring the Gollum episode and other ( Read more... )