[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem,

Thanks so much for that link.

Some comments about the Baggins book. I have been waiting for this almost 20 years! It's my understanding the job was first delegated to Taum Santoski (an American who had ties to the Marquette collection where the manuscripts are). I know he was working on it way back in the 1980s. I believe the task was actually delegated to him by Christopher Tolkien, who decided not to do The Hobbit when he took up the history of middle-earth.

Santoski died from cancer in 1991 (an early, tragic death), and the Baggins book was then delegated to John Rateliff, who also had ties to Marquette. The only interview I've ever seen with Rateliff on the net is here. He has an "interesting" background. I believe he went to Marquette and earned a doctorate there because of the presence of the Tolkien manuscipts. Apparently he earns a living by working with roleplaying games like D & D, Wizards of the Coast, etc. ! (He was also connected with Decipher's Lord of the Rings game, which was intentionally geared more to the books than other rpgs.)

For years, they kept pushing back the publication date of this book so I am surprised and happy to see that it's actually going to come out. I had gotten to the point where I was beginning to think it would never see the light of day.

Here is Rateliff's description (from the interview above) of the contents of this book:

The big project, which I've been working on for years and will finally be sending to the publisher near the end of this year, is a book called The History of The Hobbit . It's rather along the lines of Christopher Tolkien's editions that make up the History of Middle-Earth series (which I highly recommend if you haven't read them): an edition of the original manuscript of The Hobbit with extensive commentary on how Mr. Baggins' story fits into Tolkien's legendarium. It's a big book filled with the entire text of Tolkien's first draft, along with short essays about everything from rings of invisibility or Tolkien's spiders to a detailed account of just when Tolkien wrote the book (which can actually be reconstructed from available evidence to within a month or two on either end). I hope people will like it when it finally sees the light of day.

If he's really done this, it will be amazing! What makes this book especially interesting is that it has the personal blessing of Christopher Tolkien. Before the reading copy was sent to the publisher, it was submitted to Christopher to comment: May 3, 2006 blog entry.

Davem (or anyone else) -- if you know anything more about Rateliff, what's in his book, or the history of this title, please let me know. I have been following this story since the eighties, but it's always been kind of elusive. Let's just hope publication isn't delayed beyond September.