New Tolkien book coming!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

As in, actually by JRR Tolkien, not just about him.

The Nature of Middle-earth is a collection of late writings, in both the metaphysical and literal senses of the title: Tolkien's musings on the cosmology of his creation, as well as its biosphere. The collection, edited by Carl F. Hostetter (our own Aelfwine), was authorized by the late Christopher Tolkien before his death and can be viewed as a sort of 13th volume of The History of Middle Earth.

Scheduled for release in the spring of 2021.

[Inziladun]

Outstanding! Long time to wait though....

[Huinesoron]

Ooooooooh....

Per this description, the "several texts detailing the lands, flora, and fauna of Númenor, and the lives of Númenóreans" sound particularly interesting, provided that doesn't just mean "the drafts of the UT 'Description'".

Hilariously, this page indicates they only revealed this was coming by accident. Oops!

So, the Expanded History of Middle-earth now includes:

-Unfinished Tales ('HoME 0'?)
-HoME I - XII
-The Index
-The collected Parma Eldalamberon
-Some or all of the collected Vinyar Tengwar (approx. issue 39 onwards)
-The History of the Hobbit, Parts 1 & 2
-The Nature of Middle-earth

I foresee lengthy arguments about which ones count in the numbering. This is going to make all my jokes about "it's in HoME XIII: The Weird Bits" very tricky, though I suppose I can replace them with "it's all in the Hostetter book".

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

To which perhaps could be added The Chronology of the Lord of the Rings, hopefully to appear in Tolkien Studies before long.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

To which perhaps could be added The Chronology of the Lord of the Rings, hopefully to appear in Tolkien Studies before long.

Oooooooh...

Can you share any more details on that? The title is intriguing, but could mean a lot of things.

hS

[Boromir88]

Thanks for this information. Here, have some more of my money.

I'm with Huey on being excited about the additional details on Numenor.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Oooooooh...

Can you share any more details on that? The title is intriguing, but could mean a lot of things.

hS

During the later part of the writing of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien found that in order to keep all of his characters' movements synchronized - always with scrupuolus care to travel distances - he had to come up with a 'synoptic' time-scheme in multiple columns, which day by day related in brief what everyone was doing. In many cases this is stuff which never made it into print, since it was all happening offstage. That first chronology was replaced by a second as the story developed, and that by yet a third, which was done after the story was finished probably during the first phase of work on what became the Appendices. This is a fascinating document, never before published; and although I finished my annotated edition of it aeons ago I'm still struggling with the accompanying commentary-- not helped at all by Covid having locked down Marquette's archives.

[Saurondil]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

To which perhaps could be added The Chronology of the Lord of the Rings, hopefully to appear in Tolkien Studies before long.

How can one avoid missing that ?

[paulag]

I wonder if there's anything significant in here that hasn't been publisheded. I'm always up for more lore stuff but it seems like most of Tolkien's major writings are already out.
I'm still going to buy it though.

_________________________________
onplanners

[Saurondil]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

As in, actually by JRR Tolkien, not just about him.

The Nature of Middle-earth is a collection of late writings, in both the metaphysical and literal senses of the title: Tolkien's musings on the cosmology of his creation, as well as its biosphere. The collection, edited by Carl F. Hostetter (our own Aelfwine), was authorized by the late Christopher Tolkien before his death and can be viewed as a sort of 13th volume of The History of Middle Earth.

Scheduled for release in the spring of 2021.

I am really looking forward to this……