The completed Tale of Gondolin was published 13 years ago?!

[davem]

Originally Posted by johnboy3434

What I was wondering was why CRT hasn't snatched it up for a wider release.

'cos its not a genuine work by JRR Tolkien. Lewis has simply taken different versions of Tolkien's work & stuck them together. Its fanfic of the worst kind, because it purports to be Tolkien's work. (And from the accounts of people who have read it it isn't all that good. Lewis did not have the authorisation to produce this work & it was done without supervision by CT. This is not something that can be done if the editor wants his work to be accepted, let alone taken seriously.

Even though Lewis was the one that pieced it together (on an unrelated note, this guy isn't related to C. S. Lewis, is he?), the Estate holds the rights to the text itself (apart from any forwards, afterwards, or indexes, of course). So why don't they just release it? Most of the job is done, already. I mean, Priscilla Tolkien has a copy, and editorial work will be reduced from the normally massive job of bringing the texts into line with each other to the correction of spelling and other mere tidy-up jobs. It would be the easiest Middle-earth-related book CRT has ever had to churn out, that's for sure.

See above. This work is neither one thing or another. Its not Tolkien's work, its a collection of different bits stuck together on a whim to produce a work that Mr Lewis could put his name to in order, one assumes, to associate himself with Tolkien. CT is the authorised editor of his father's work. He has, in turn, authorised others to edit & prepare some works of his father's for publication. The fact that Lewis asked permission of Priscilla rather than Christopher for this work to be published speaks volumes. The idea that simply because a (very average, judging by the one book of Tolkien criticism of his I've read) Tolkien scholar knocks up his own version of of one of Tolkien's stories it should simply be accepted & put out as an 'officially authorised' Tolkien novel is just silly. Anyone who owns a copy of The Sil & UT could knock up their own version of the Tale of Gondolin or any other 'unfinished' work - is the Estate supposed to publish them simply because someone knocked them up on Microsoft Word? You seem to be arguing just that - because Lewis has knocked this thing up it should be published with the blessing of the Estate. Where does it stop? At best Lewis' work is an interesting curio. Personally I have no interest in reading this thing.

If they can avoid being as overly lush and elaborate as Lewis himself (obviously done to justify the $1,000+ price tag), there could be a potential profit in this.

Yes, well, vanity publishing is a term which would seem to fit Mr Lewis very well, but, (as you put it) 'churning out' books for 'potential profit' would seem to be the last thing on Christopher Tolkien's mind, thank goodness.