"The Fall of Numenor", coming November 2022

[Huinesoron]

Announced today, the Tolkien Estate will be publishing The Fall of Numenor this November: a collection of Tolkien's writings on Numenor in the style of the Beren and Luthien and Fall of Gondolin books. It's described as "collect[ing] together J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings of the Second Age", and like the Great Tales is illustrated with multiple colour paintings and sketches from Alan Lee. It's edited by Brian Sibley, who I confess I know little about.

I'm so pleased with this. ^_^ I've been saying pretty much since the Amazon series was revealed as Numenorean that the Estate should push out a book of what Tolkien wrote on Numenor, and this looks to be exactly that.

No word on specific contents, except that they're using the Tale of Years to provide structure for it. Looking through the books, I think the relevant texts go something like this:

• "Lives of the Numenoreans" (NoME)
• "The Land and Beasts of Numenor" (NoME) < These two were edited down to make the UT "Description".
• "The Line of Elros" (UT)
• "The Mariner's Wife" (UT)
• Portions of "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn" (UT) and "Of the Rings of Power" (Silm), and probably bits of Appendix A (LotR) too.
• "Akallabeth" (Silm)

Whether they could also work in parts of "The Lost Road" and "The Notion Club Papers" is a bit more difficult; Fall of Gondolin managed by presenting the 1917 Fall entirely separately, but this sounds a bit more cohesive. We shall have to wait and see.

(And the timing is pretty good here - it's spot on for people to finish the first series of Amazon's Rings of Power, and want to read "the book it came from".)

hS

[Inziladun]

I'm quite on board with additional material on Númenor, as long as it comes from the Professor himself.

[Mithadan]

And here's how it is being marketed. "New J.R.R. Tolkien Book Set in Rings of Power Timeline Announced."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainm...31b2550fab3aa1

[Inziladun]

As if we needed a bloody Amazon tie-in to bait the hook.

[Urwen]

I am excited to read in depth about Miriel and Phary.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

As if we needed a bloody Amazon tie-in to bait the hook.

Thing is... I feel like people who would be super pleased to read this book are unlikely to be super pleased by the series, and vice versa.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Thing is... I feel like people who would be super pleased to read this book are unlikely to be super pleased by the series, and vice versa.

I feel that's a bit harsh. How many people got deep into Middle-earth on the back of the movies? I don't think I started collecting HoME until after the trilogy was complete, and Fall of Numenor will probably be less scholarly than that.

Particularly if they centre it on "Aldarion & Erendis". Having an actual narrative in there, with a detail level closer to LotR than Silm, is likely to snag a lot more readers than HoME did. The Estate has known this for a while - that's why they pushed Children of Hurin so hard.

They've also got potential to snag people who read LotR and Hobbit, but were put off by the Silm and avoided things with "Unfinished" and "History of" in the title. I suspect that sort of reader are a large part of Amazon's target market too - it's not like they were ever going to be prioritising people who know the difference between LaCE and the Shibboleth!

This is a very sensible move by the Estate, and honestly, if Christopher had lived longer I think "Numenor book" would have been the natural follow-up to the Great Tales for him too.

(Next on my wishlist for illustrated releases: "The Line of Kings", collecting all the Third Age material prior to The Hobbit, and a reader's edition of the Book of Lost Tales. I can dream...!)

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

And here's how it is being marketed. "New J.R.R. Tolkien Book Set in Rings of Power Timeline Announced."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainm...31b2550fab3aa1

Do we have an emoji for "barf?"