Middle-earth Journeys
It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door…You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.
To read the rest of the article visit The North Adams Transcript. To order visit Amazon.comWednesday, December 14
By John E. Mitchell
WILLIAMSTOWN — Married librarians Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull have lent their considerable research talents to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien in their upcoming book, "The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion."
Hammond has been a librarian in the Chapin Library at Williams College since 1976, while Scull was the librarian of Sir John Sloane's Museum in London, from 1971 to 1995. Between the two, Hammond and Scull have written and edited four Tolkien-related works, including "J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator." Following the current book will be their massive work the "J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide."
Already well known
"I think we are fairly well known as Tolkien writers,
Tolkien scholars," said Ham-mond, "people who can be counted on and document things. We don't just throw things out as a matter of interpretation or without careful work. We also are known for actually using what is called primary sources, we go to the library and archives, which you would expect from a couple of librarians, and go into the manuscripts and the typescripts and the proofs and really dig and find things out and then concentrate on the facts, which is what Tolkien himself liked to do, which is what he did in his academic work."
Before working on the companion, the couple required a definitive text to annotate, which meant creating a definitive text. Some of this work had been done over the years by Tolkien himself, as well as his son Christopher,
who had corrected name changes in characters for the release of "The Silmarillion," but there were still further corrections that needed to be made. The errors ran the gamut, some resulted from the printer on the second edition of the books while others were from Tolkien himself.
"He was very meticulous," said Christina, "but he had a book of 1,000 pages. He had terrific times schemes, he had a whole pile of time schemes that he made one after the other, as he kept on changing things, but things like that did get in there."
Hammond and Scull do tackle some story problems, but only the ones that are actually solvable, having to do with some timeline inconsistencies or contradictory dialogue. They stay away from more speculative mysteries, such as the real identities of characters like Tom Bombadil and Glofindel.
© The Transcript.com
For more visit OneRing.net25th March is Tolkien Reading Day
Tolkien Reading Day is an event to encourage the use of Tolkien's works in education and library reading groups. Launched in 2003 the reading day event has sparked interest in reading and reading groups across several nations and ages from Primary schoolchildren to University students and library users of all ages. Hence the circulation of this release to the media, educational press and county library services.
Tolkien's works encompass many themes, and can be used to illustrate or provide assessment subjects for study areas in current school curricula. 25th March has significance to Tolkien's readers, as it is the day of the Downfall of Sauron at the conclusion of the 'War of the Ring' in "The Lord of the Rings." For children and adults reading together is fun, and stimulates good conversation, vocabulary development, an interest in history and for some an interest in linguistics.
There's more to Tolkien than "The Lord of the Rings", schools and reading groups can enjoy the mock-medieval rebellion of "Farmer Giles of Ham" complete with giants and dragons or the radio play "The Homecoming of Beohrtnoth" that looks at the aftermath of a Viking raid.© 1999-2003 TheOneRing®.net. TheOneRing
© Iolanthe
© Copyright Comic-Con International
© Spiderwebart Gallery
Tolkien's richness
June 21, 2006
By KENDALL WILD
There's a new book out on the "Lord of the Rings" and its accompanying volumes that says J. R. R. Tolkien's writing is much more subtle and nuanced than most people have realized. Marjorie Burns, a professor in the Department of English at Portland State University, says Tolkien blended Norse and Celtic factors in a delicate, abstruse manner that makes the works as scholarly as they are entertaining.
Professor Burns steeped herself in all of Tolkien's fiction, both what he wrote while alive and what was produced from his sketches and notes after his death. She also read his scholarly nonfiction works, his numerous letters and the comments other people made about him and his writing, as well as the press, radio and television interviews he participated in.
Her book is entitled "Perilous Realms," with the subtitle "Celtic and Norse in Tolkien's Middle-earth."
You can get an idea of how she operates from some of the chapter headings:
"Two Norths and Their English Blend."
"Skin-Changing in More than One Sense."
"Iceland and Middle-earth: Two Who Loved the North."
"Spiders and Evil Red Eyes: The Shadow Sides of Gandalf and Galadriel."
Professor Burns says Gandalf was modeled on Odin, chief of the Norse gods. In addition to having the same type of temperament, she says, they each rode horses with supernatural powers. Odin rode Sleipnir and Gandalf rides Shadowfax whose name, she says, means "Shadow Mane." Both Odin and Gandalf make extensive use of birds.
While Gandalf is generally considered one of the "good guys," he has dark echoes in Saruman and Sauron, who are what Gandalf would have become if he himself had taken the Ring of Power.
For Galadriel, queen of elves in Lothlorien, there is a dark echo in the spider Shelob, lurking in darkened caves. Both are described as weaving — Galadriel the elf cloaks given to the travelers, and Shelob her nets in her tunnels. Each is described as working with webs.
Incidentally, Professor Burns came across a comment Tolkien made about having as youth read a boys' story by the late Victorian and Edwardian writer H. Rider Haggard, entitled "She." It concerns a being who dwells in shadowy places, and Professor Burns thinks it is no coincidence that the spider dwelling in shadows is named SHE-lob.
Tolkien immersed himself in languages, and studied the Icelandic eddas and Norse legends, as well as what came down from the Anglo-Saxons and Celtic mythology. There's an Icelandic saga that includes a character named Froda, and Professor Burns thinks that may have given Tolkien the name for Frodo.
The stories about King Arthur are basically Celtic, and Professor Burns finds parallel individuals in Welsh and Irish literature that she says prefigure some of the characters in Middle-earth.
When a knight of the Round Table embarked on a quest, it usually was to find someone or something. The quest in Lord of the Rings is to get rid of something.
Professor Burns studied Tolkien's background and surmises that it had a great deal of influence on his adult thinking and his desire for a country of his own. An ancestor named Tollkuhn came to England from Germany in the late 1700s. Tolkien was born in what is now part of South Africa but what was then the Orange Free State. His mother took him and his younger brother to visit relatives in England when Tolkien was 3, while the father stayed behind to work. Within a year the father died, and the son had hardly any recollection. While in England the mother and children converted to Catholicism, which alienated some member of families on both sides.
Then his mother died of diabetes when he was 12, and Tolkien became the ward of the priest who was in their parish. Tolkien later referred to him as a father figure.
On the Western Front in World War I the youth came down with trench fever and had to be carried off the battlefield.
With this background, Professor Burns says, Tolkien became very definite about being English. In a radio interview after he became well known, he discussed northern Europe as a place "where I was born." Then he corrected himself, saying: "Well, not exactly, but I soon came back." Professor Burns felt the phrase "came back," indicated Tolkien's strong desire to be certain of his Englishness.
Some of the other Oxford faculty members scorned his fiction, calling it a waste of time. Then when he became internationally known, with media interviews proliferating, and especially after the money began to roll in, a certain amount of jealousy arose. A researcher on a Tolkien nonfiction work recently found some Oxford professors who maintained he was not profound.
But in the words of Professor Burns:
"As always in Tolkien's writing this character complexity, this richness of literary association, is subtly and unassumingly conferred … He knows much and shares much, but unpretentiously … He takes us through predicaments and landscapes the Arthurian heroes knew. He leads us into the Celtic Otherworld and the hostile eddic North. He introduces us (unobtrusively) to forgotten forms of English verse and Anglo-Saxon words. He brings life to bygone heroes, to ancient stories, to lost and forgotten lands, and he does so with a generous and prolific simplicity."
© Rutland Herald
To view the original article visit the Rutland Herald
To read the rest of the article and see the plans for updating articles visit Tolkienbooks.netWhile the process of writing The Lord of the Rings has been described in detail by Christopher Tolkien in the History of Middle-earth series, less is known of the production and early publishing history of the books.
Some of Tolkien’s thoughts and actions are recorded in the selection of his letters that have been published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, and Wayne Hammond’s Tolkien bibliography includes a fairly detailed chronology of events up to the publication of The Return of the King in October 1955, but there is great deal more information that is not so widely available. This includes Rayner Unwin’s account of his relationship with Tolkien in his book George Allen & Unwin: A Remembrancer, and correspondence held in the Allen & Unwin archive at Reading University.
The articles below cover a variety of aspects of the bibliography of The Lord of the Rings and will, when completed, trace the publishing history from Tolkien’s attempts to secure the publication of both LotR and The Silmarillion in the early 1950s through to the publication of the Second Edition in the mid-1960s.© tolkienbooks.net
Birmingham's historic Moseley Bog, said to have inspired JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, is to get a major revamp. The area's Wildlife Trust will use up to £500,000 of lottery grants to transform the wetlands, adding new car parking, footpaths and public art.
The news has been welcomed by fans of Tolkien. The author used the bog as a childhood playground. His great nephew, Tim Tolkien, says he hopes the spirit of the site will be preserved throughout the work.
Moseley Bog dates back to the Bronze Age and is thought to have inspired the "Old Forest" in the author's books. The city council has entered into an agreement with the Wildlife Trust to jointly manage Moseley Bog.
The council will retain the freehold lease while the Wildlife Trust will manage the site for the next 25 years.
© BBC News
A three-bedroom bungalow where JRR Tolkien used to live has gone on sale with an asking price of £1 million.
The writer, who was raised in Birmingham, lived at the address from 1968-1972 during his retirement.
The high price tag has been put down to the Lord Of The Rings effect and it being in a "sought-after area" of Poole, Dorset.
Richard Farnes, of Goadsby estate agents, said he anticipated a high degree of interest to be shown by fans.
The author left the property to move to Oxford shortly after his wife, Edith, died and he too died the following year.
Mr Farnes told BBC News: "It's in a desirable area. It has a great view and a wooded backdrop- with the view and the history you can't put a price on it."
© BBC
Spanish publishing house Espasa Calpe is going to publish The Hobbit Reader's Guide for Students (in Spanish), as part of the relaunching of their "Colección Austral", dedicated to the republishing of classical authors of universal literature. For the first time in this collection, Espasa will publish works of contemporary authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien.
This edition of The Hobbit contains, apart from the story of Bilbo Baggins and the map of Thrór, a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, chronology and bibliography, a reader's guide for students with activities and a glossary Middle-earth terms.
It is the first time that a reader's guide to a Tolkien work has been published in Spanish. The guide has been edited by Paola Castagno (co-author of J.R.R. Tolkien: Preguntas Frecuentes (y no tan frecuentes), a book answering some FAQs about Middle-earth and Tolkien's work and life) and Leandro Pascual (webmaster of http://www.elfenomeno.com, a Spanish site devoted to J.R.R. Tolkien's work).
The book will be released in October 2006 in Spain.
© Tolkien Society
THE SILMARILLION: THEMES, NARRATIVES, COMPARATIVE STUDIES
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Departments of English and Religious Studies of St. Francis College and the Northeast Tolkien Society, Heren Istarion, will co-sponsor a conference, “The Silmarillion: Themes, Narratives, Comparative Studies,” on April 20-22, 2007. The event will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1977 publication of The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien.
The conference will be held at St. Francis College in downtown Brooklyn, New York.
The program will focus on the entire body of mythic narrative collectively known as “the Silmarillion,” in all the different versions of its parts written throughout Tolkien’s life.
A wide range of interrelated subjects connected to the Silmarillion will be discussed.
We invite proposals on the following topics:
- The formation of the Silmarillion: its composition, worldview and languages
- Themes and narratives of the Silmarillion; comparative studies
- The Silmarillion in context: the relation of Tolkien’s myth to the work of other Inklings
- Interdisciplinary approaches to all of the above topics
Proposals should be submitted as 1-page abstracts for 20-minute papers or as 8-10 page papers.
We welcome proposals for complete panels as well as individual presentations.
Preference will be given to proposals on the topics given above.
Proposals should be submitted January 22, 2007 by e-mail to BOTH of the e-mail addresses below or by regular mail to:
Department of Religious Studies, St. Francis College, 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
tolkien@stfranciscollege.edu
chairman@herenistarion.org
© Heren Istarion - North East Tolkien Society
