Christopher Tolkien

[Brian Henderson]

Has anybody got any up-to-date information on anything Christopher
Tolkien (or the Estate/Trust generally) is working on? After the
publication of 'Peoples...' in '96 several articles reported that
Christopher was proposing to work on (after a break) Tolkien's own
translations of various academic material e.g. Volsunga Saga, Beowulf,
Arthur etc. -in the hope of publishing these. Anyone read/heard
anything about this?

'History of the Hobbit' being worked on by John Rateliff -anyone any
information on this? (perhaps someone who's attended any conference in
last couple of years & heard anything about this project).

BH

[Halion]

Brian Henderson wrote:
> 'History of the Hobbit' being worked on by John Rateliff -anyone any
> information on this? (perhaps someone who's attended any conference in
> last couple of years & heard anything about this project).

Rateliff comments on the book here:
http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?int_dnd30_Rateliff

But the "30th Anniversary" interview series seems to be from 2004, and
the page is copyrighted 2005, so I'm not sure which year he meant by
"the end of this year".

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I'm not sure when the "History of the Hobbit" is due out, but I did (a
few months ag) find and post some links to some Rateliff articles,
including this one on 'The Hobbit':

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicshobbit

To get the other Rateliff articles on that site, use their search box,
or use a suitable Google search. I provide a couple below:

http://tinyurl.com/ov38q

[Google search - Rateliff "Classics of Fantasy" articles]

http://tinyurl.com/l8r9r

[Google search - first few hits are Rateliff's reviews of the Jackson
films]

Not sure if this all helps, and apologies to those who've seen these
links already.

Christopher

--
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Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard

[ssmmbfcs]

In a paper by John Rateliff, given in October 2004 and published about
a month ago, it is also stated the forthcoming publishing of The
History of the Hobbit. John Rateliff even cites a section or chapter
by name:

"It can hardly be coincidence that as late as 1940, when writing the
opening chapter of The Hobbit, Tolkien felt free to include no only
references to Beren,... [more of his mythology]... but also to the Gobi
Desert, Hindu Kush, and "the Wild wire-Worms of the Chinise" as past of
Bilbo's world. (40)

40. See Rateliff, "The Pryftan Fragment", in _The History of The
Hobbit_, forthcomming."

And in bibliography it appears as:

Rateliff, John D. The history of the Hobbit. London: Harper Collins,
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, forthcoming.

ssmmbfcs

[Simon J. Rowe]

ssmmbfcs wrote:

> Rateliff, John D. The history of the Hobbit. London: Harper Collins,
> Boston: Houghton Mifflin, forthcoming.

Amazon.co.uk lists the proposed publication date as September 18, 2006 (for
what that's worth).

[ssmmbfcs]

>From a personal communication:

" Thank you for your query. I don't know the actual publication
date; that's up to the publisher, who will be HarperCollins. I am on
the final pages of the final chapter (the timeline and itinerary for
Bilbo's trip that's part of the 1960 Hobbit), so it should soon be in
their hands for approvals, editing, production, &c. If all goes well
it should be out before the end of the year. I hope you'll find it
interesting when it does appear; I've certainly learned a great deal
about how Tolkien wrote and the degree to which all his work is
interconnected."

ssmmbfcs

[Dave Stallard]

ssmmbfcs wrote:
> In a paper by John Rateliff, given in October 2004 and published about
> a month ago, it is also stated the forthcoming publishing of The
> History of the Hobbit. John Rateliff even cites a section or chapter
> by name:
>
> "It can hardly be coincidence that as late as 1940, when writing the
> opening chapter of The Hobbit, Tolkien felt free to include no only
> references to Beren,... [more of his mythology]... but also to the Gobi
> Desert, Hindu Kush, and "the Wild wire-Worms of the Chinise" as past of
> Bilbo's world. (40)

Umm, TH was published in 1937, IIRC. What am I missing?

Dave

[LJJ]

amazon.uk now have "The History of the Hobbit : Mr Baggins" by John Rateliff
listed for publication on 18th Sept 2006. Not yet on Harper Collins site though.

------------------------------------------

On 29 Mar 2006 03:22:34 -0800, "Brian Henderson" <brian...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

[Brian Henderson]

Thanks for all those replies folks.

[Larry Swain]

Very good question.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

> Very good question.

Sounds like a confusion with the first chapter of LotR, which was
written circa 1939/1940 IIRC. Either that, or it is a typo.

Or we've all fallen into some strange parallel universe...