The Guardian reports that a previously unpublished collection of essays by J.R.R. Tolkien about Middle-earth will be published in June 2021! This will probably be of interest to only the biggest of Tolkien fans and speaking as one, I cannot wait for this collection! Topics include Elvish immortality and reincarnation; the nature of the Valar, the god-like spirits of Middle-earth; the lands and beasts of Númenor; the geography of the kingdom of Gondor; and even who had beards. Whether elves, hobbits and even dwarven women could grow beards has long been subject of debate among fans. The writings will be edited by Carl F Hostetter, a Tolkien expert and head of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship who has been a computer engineer at Nasa since 1985. Hostetter previously worked with Tolkien’s youngest son Christopher, who curated the author’s posthumous output until his death in January, aged 95. Be sure to check out the article itself for the gorgeous cover for the collection!
It is ridiculous how many hidden essays/papers that guy had/has. For the people that care, it will probably be interesting. As for me, I only deal with the LotR trilogy and The Hobbit, everything else is way too overly complicated and esoteric for me.
If it's really unpublished material. I have my doubts because there are already numerous essays with those same topics published in the History of Middle Earth series. Plus the last so called "book" of "new material", Beren and Luthien, didn't feature actually any new material by Tolkien. It just collected all the material concerning the legend of Beren and Luthien, previously published in multiple other volumes.
Was the posthumous stuff credited to Tolkien like The Silmarilion and the History of Middle stuff actually written entirely by Tolkien, or was it more of Dune situation where his son wrote it based on stuff he left behind?
The Silmarillion is basically a Frankenstein text pasted together from several decades of material (Tolkien changed his mind constantly, on everything) to create a version that would be as consistent with the Lord of the Rings as possible and yes, in some parts Christopher Tolkien had to edit, cut or expand the text. One chapter he had to re-write from scratch because the only existing version was from the 1920s and took place in a version of Middle Earth when there was still fairies and leprechauns and when the Dwarves were still evil. But the bulk of everything is still Tolkien's work. The material that was released after the Silmarillion (The Unfinished Tales, the Book of Lost Tales and the History of Middle Earth) meanwhile just consists of the material Christopher used to create the Silmarillion (so the various drafts of the tales, including g narrative poems) and various esseys. But Christopher never created any original work based on his father's work, no. Kind of a pity, imho, I'd love to have a proper novel version of stories like Beren and Luthien or Gondolin.
True, although in the case of Gondolin, I think the surviving texts in The Fall of Gondolin come close to somewhat a whole story in the form of two different halves that mostly fit together.
Children of Hurin is a wonderful novel, in my opinion, though I do wonder how much of it is Christopher Tolkien vs his father's notes. He'd never take credit for it, of course.
I bought that years ago and I still haven't gotten around to it. More to do with me getting distracted by other books and less to do with the book itself.
Do you mean the very early version in the Book of Lost Tales that describes the battle and everything? True it is a nice short story, and I actually do quite like the version of the myths shown in the Book of Lost Tales in general (they have a lot more life and passion to them than the versions int he Silmarillion), but imagine a novella detailing Tour's life and the fall of the city. Just imagine if "Of Tour and his coming Gondolin" http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Of_Tuor_and_his_Coming_to_Gondolin had grown into a whole novel. But even there the middle part (Turin's life in Nargothrond and Glaurung attacking the city) is missing. From what I remember reading about the topic, the text shown in Children of Hurin comes from a period when Tolkien played with he thought of turning what he called the "three central tales of the Silmarillion" (Beren & Luthien, Turin/the Chidlren of Hurin and Tour/the Fall of Gondolin) into a trilogy of novels as a sort of follow-up to the Lord of the Rings. The Children of Hurin is the one that came closest to completion, the Gondolin story abruptly breaks off with Tours arrival at the city (i think that version is included int Unfinished Tales as "Of Tour and his coming to Gondolin") while Beren and Luthien was, as far as I know, never even started.
Well, yes, that version was included in The Book of Lost Tales, but the recent The Fall of Gondolin included that version and all of the other versions of the story. Here's my review of the book when it came out which clarifies my earlier point about the two halves.
Ah yeah, that book. I don't think much about it and the "Beren and Luthien" collection since it's just a collection of previously released material bundled under a "theme" so to say. As to your idea of taking the two "halves" to enjoy a complete story...well there's the problem that a lot of the "first version" of the Fall of Gondolin just doesn't gel with the way Middle Earth worked by the time Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings (the "living WW1 tanks" the Valar being revered as pagan gods, Gondolin existing for thousands of years before it was destroyed etc. etc. etc.) I mean again, I like the Lost Tales version of the various tales, but they really aren't compatible with the Lord of the Rings (and later) phase of the mythology. Also in the Book of Lost Tales version (iirc) Christopher Tolkien talks a bit about the Legolas that shows up in the Fall of Gondolin having the same name as the one in the Lord of the Rings and I think in the name list it's mentioned that his name (at that point in the development of the languages) might have meant "Sharp Sight" or something to the effect. Also Gimli's name is used for an Elf in the Book of Lost Tales as well, a fellow prisoner of Beren in Telvido's fortress (iirc) With the whole, detailed description of the seven gates int he "last version" I really wish it would have continued, I wish we'd know how Tolkien would have reworked and described the Seven Houses in a revised version.