Unseen JRRT Hobbit Pic

[davem]

Daily Mail has a feature about some previously unseen illustrations by Tolkien http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=1850423044001

Now. the first three I've already seen, but the fourth is a bit interesting - if only for the fact that Elrond is described as 'Half-elfin' as opposed to the usual Half-elven'.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Very nice, thanks for that, davem. I have seen the first and the third one (although not so green), but I also haven't seen the Smaug one, either. Can someone who is fluent in Elvish decipher the writings on the edge of the last one? (If they make any sense?) I am too lazy for that...

[Pomegranate]

I started wondering about half-elfin as well. As far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong, non-native), elfin is the "right" English adjective for elf-like or elf-made, and Tolkien had problems with this as often the word elven was indeed 'corrected' to elfin in LotR, by the publishers. Maybe at this point he had himself not settled on elven? Is there a date to be found somewhere, to tell when the picture was drawn?

I'll join Legate's plea for deciphers of the text in the last one.

[Calcifer]

All of the pictures, and many more, are in The Art of The Hobbit by Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull, published in 2011 by HarperCollins UK and earlier this month by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the USA. The image in question is the reverse side of Death of Smaug, and Hammond and Scull decipher the text.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

"Previously unseen" my fanny.

Somewhere buried in the middle of the text the Mail fesses up to "previously unseen in any newspaper."

Rivendell and the Eagle (Bilbo Awoke With the Sun in His Eyes) of course were published in the second UK and first US printings in 1938*; and the Death of Smaug first appeared as the cover of the 1966 UK paperback before being printed in Pictures by JRR Tolkien (1979). All have since been reprinted in Hammond and Scull's JRR Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator; while their new Art of the Hobbit does contain previously unpublished illustrations, these ain't them.

*Actually the UK and US editions each had four color plates, but different ones; Houghton Mifflim used the Eagle picture whereas Unwins went with Bilbo Comes to the Huts of the Raft-Elves

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Pomegranate

I started wondering about half-elfin as well. As far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong, non-native), elfin is the "right" English adjective for elf-like or elf-made, and Tolkien had problems with this as often the word elven was indeed 'corrected' to elfin in LotR, by the publishers. Maybe at this point he had himself not settled on elven? Is there a date to be found somewhere, to tell when the picture was drawn?

I think 'elfin' must be correct given the origins of the word 'elf' and other uses of it (it was aelf in old English and is the root of names such as Alfred). Alan Garner's own 'elves' are the Svartalfar, reflecting the Norse tradition. I have read 'elven' used in other writings than Tolkien's, and 'elfin' grew to relate more to fairy/folk tale. Though I have to say that in the wake of Tolkien, you don't hear 'elfin' used very much nowadays unless to describe a child or a young fashion model!

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I think 'elfin' must be correct given the origins of the word 'elf' and other uses of it (it was aelf in old English and is the root of names such as Alfred).

The Old English word was normally spelled ælf or sometimes elf.

Etymological dictionaries claim that the form Elfin was invented by Edmund Spencer in his Fairie Queen, and from that point became a common adjectival form. Spelling was not nearly so fixed as now in Spencer’s day.

In older tales it is the word fairy that is generally used, not elf. And looking through such older tales as I find, even those that mention elves do not happen to use adjectival forms. My memory is that both elfin and elven were formerly in use by different authors. And Tolkien again and again makes a big deal that the form dwarves with a v is his own invention, but never claims to have invented the form elven.

So I take it that my memory is correct and that elven was a reasonably common form which Tolkien preferred to elfin. But dictionaries then used by proof-readers listed elfin as the preferred form to use, whence Tolkien’s difficulties.

Even now elven is still in common use but dwarves and dwarvan is mostly limited to references to Tolkien’s work, except in translations from the Norse by the poet W. H. Auden who used dwarves because of his respect for Tolkien’s work.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Even now elven is still in common use but dwarves and dwarvan is mostly limited to references to Tolkien’s work

It seems that at least in the US fantasy and RPG industries, "dwarves" has become the standard form, of course due to Tolkien's influence.