Another "new" Tolkien book

[Inanna]

I meant the last page of the review.


I’m sorry I spoke up. I have always enjoyed reading your writing - and your thoughts. I have learnt a lot through them. I should have gone with my first instinct - a face to face conversation on this between you and me would have gone differently. I think.

But yes, I understand your perspective. You placed your review here in good faith and I attacked it. I apologize.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I meant the last page of the review.

Ah yes, I did say that. Thanks for pointing that out. Well, it's my honest opinion, but perhaps one that I should not have shared.

You have nothing to apologize for.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Not a 'new' book, per se, but huge news nonetheless.

The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded edition

[Alatar]

Well I finally got round to reading "The Fall of Númenor" and I have to completely disagree with Voronwë and Eldy. I loved it. Its exactly what I hoped it would be, all the info on second Age in one concise, chronological volume, with very little editorial messing around. More of this please!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Glad you liked it, Al!

[Jude]

So does it have a continuous narrative with no gaps? (I may have asked this before, but I can't remember)

[Eldy]

Glad you liked it, Al!

Likewise, I'm glad you enjoyed it, Al.

So does it have a continuous narrative with no gaps? (I may have asked this before, but I can't remember)

There are separate chapters (which vary wildly in length) for every year of the Second Age that has an entry in the timeline found in LOTR Appendix B. I don't know if that counts as having gaps in your book, but it's not structured like a novel (or even the 1977 Silmarillion), if that's what you mean.

[Eldy]

Not a 'new' book, per se, but huge news nonetheless.

The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded edition

Also, this is very exciting, though I've been out of the loop for a while so I'm only just now learning of it. I've been wishing for an expanded edition of the Letters for years, though, so I'm glad they're doing one now. Has there been any word on how they're going to manage the numbering?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Hi Eldy!

I haven't heard anything since I posted that. I am of two minds about the numbering. On the one hand, part of things that they should just renumber the letters chronologically. But on the other hand that would screw up the citations to years of scholarship, unless people want to use two different editions. Either way, I am excited for the new edition, though I was hoping that a revised and expanded edition would include some of the letters that have come to light since the original edition was compiled.

[Eldy]

Hi, V!

I usually cite the Letters by letter number, not page number, so I definitely hope that they don't redo everything. I've wondered before if they might distinguish them by appending letters to the original numbers—e.g., an addition that dates to between Letter 101 and Letter 102 might become Letter 101A—allowing the numbering to still bear some relation to the chronology, but I have no idea. I'm definitely looking forward to the new edition, in any event!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Part of the problem is that we don't know (or at least I don't know) who is actually working (or worked) on the new edition, as it is just advertised as edited by Carpenter with Christopher's assistance. I would guess that Wayne and Christina would be the most logical choice to finalize the new edition (and presumably revise their fine index which was such an improvement to the original edition), but I have not heard any confirmation of that.

If I can suss anything out, I'll surely post it here!

[scirocco]

You would have to assume that it will contain the full text of Letter 131 to Milton Waldman, the one that is a kind of a synopsis of the whole history of M-E. It's a fantastic read. Only an abridged version of this letter was published in the various editions of The Letters of JRR Tolkien.

The complete text was published a few years ago in Hammond and Scull's Reader's Companion, but that's hardly a mass market paperback that every home will have on the shelf!

It will be nice to have the whole thing in a revised Letters.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here is a preview of the first 99 pages of the new book, with content into 1944.

https://preview.aer.io/The_Letters_of_J ... n-NjAyNTY2

Thanks to David Bratman who pointed out the preview on his blog.

https://kalimac.blogspot.com/2023/10/ll ... errss.html

[N.E. Brigand]

Some interesting new material in there. I only looked at the inserted letters and didn't try to compare to previously published letters to see which ones had been expanded. Very grateful that they've gone with a supplemental alphabetical system in order to retain the original letter numbers.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I really don't see what other choice they had. Nonetheless, I too am glad that they took the only reasonable step that they had. That doesn't always happen.

I haven't had the time to look through the preview, and I might not do so before I have the actual book in hand.