The Collected Poems of J. R. R. Tolkien
12 March
(edited)
2024-3-12 5:23:52 PM UTC
2024-3-12 5:23:52 PM UTC
Announcing today is a huge new collection of Tolkien Poems, to be released in September. More details will be added here as they become available.
From Amazon (this description has already had multiple corrections pointed out in the press release above and from the editors):
Release: 12 September 2024
ISBN 978-0008628826
Three volume boxed set
Edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond
1620 pagesFrom a HarperCollins email[1]
Christina and Wayne have published background on how this book came into being on their blog: https://wayneandchristina.wordpress.co ... tolkiens-collected-poems/
From their blog post, we are told the following additional details:
Further, in a reply below the editors add the following information:
The split of the poems are
UK Trade
US Trade
UK eBook
US eBook
Audiobook
No information as yet
From the collection of Mr. Underhill
- Press Release
COLLECTED POEMS OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN TO BE PUBLISHED FOR FIRST TIME
London, Tuesday 12 March
HarperCollins has announced it is to publish The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond, in September 2024.
Poetry was the first way in which Tolkien expressed himself creatively and through it the seeds of his literary ambition would be sown. Out of one of his earliest poems, The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star, begun in 1914, would appear the character, Eärendil, and from him would spring the world of ‘the Silmarillion’, and then The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, each of whose stories are enriched with poems both humorous and haunting, magical and moving.
The world-renowned Tolkien scholars, Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond, provide the stories behind, and analysis of, each poem, as well as revealing the extraordinary amount of work that Tolkien devoted to every one, creating a landmark new publication which confirms that J.R.R. Tolkien was as fine a poet as he was a writer.
Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond say: ‘It has been an honour to prepare, at Christopher Tolkien’s invitation, these volumes of his father’s poems, putting into print many previously unpublished works and ensuring that Tolkien’s talent for poetry becomes more widely known. Charged at first to review only his early poems, we soon saw the benefits of examining his entire poetic opus across six decades, vast though it is with hundreds of printed and manuscript sources, and of showing its evolution with comments in the manner of Christopher’s magisterial History of Middle-earth series. Not long before his death, we were able to send Christopher a trial portion of the book, which he praised as “remarkable and immensely desirable”.’
Chris Smith, Publishing Director, says: ‘Poetry runs like a vein of mithril through all the books that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote. He delighted in language and storytelling, and the almost 200 poems contained in this collection reveal him at his creative best in verse. Within this new three-volume set, there are worlds in miniature to be discovered and revelled in, populated with unforgettable characters and settings both familiar and full of wonder.’
The Hobbit was first published in 1937 and The Lord of the Rings in 1954–5. Each has since gone on to become a beloved classic of literature, and an international bestseller in more than 70 languages, collectively selling more than 150,000,000 copies worldwide. Published in 1977, 40 years after The Hobbit first introduced the world to Tolkien’s Middle-earth, The Silmarillion sold more than one million copies in its first year of publication and has gone on to be translated into almost 40 languages. It was the first of seventeen Middle-earth books produced by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son, Christopher, who was his father’s literary executor and who died in 2020, aged 95, after a lifetime dedicated to curating his father’s work for publication.
Issued by: Philippa Cotton, Publicity Director
Notes to Editors:
J.R.R. TOLKIEN was born on 3rd January 1892. After serving in the First World War, he embarked upon a distinguished academic career and was recognized as one of the finest philologists in the world. He is best known as the creator of Middle-earth and author of the classic and extraordinary works of fiction, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. His books have been translated into more than 70 languages and have sold many millions of copies worldwide. He died on 2nd September 1973 at the age of 81.
ABOUT HARPERCOLLINS
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From Amazon (this description has already had multiple corrections pointed out in the press release above and from the editors):
World first publication of the collected poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, spanning almost seven decades of the author’s life and presented in an elegant three-volume hardback boxed set.
J.R.R. Tolkien aspired to be a poet in the first instance, and poetry was part of his creative life no less than his prose, his languages, and his art. Although Tolkien’s readers are aware that he wrote poetry, if only from verses in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, its extent is not well known, and its qualities are underappreciated. Within his larger works of fiction, poems help to establish character and place as well as further the story; as individual works, they delight with words and rhyme. They express his love of nature and the seasons, of landscape and music, and of words. They convey his humour and his sense of wonder.
The earliest work in this collection, written for his beloved, is dated to 1910, when Tolkien was eighteen. More poems would follow during his years at Oxford, some of them very elaborate and eccentric. Those he composed during the First World War, in which he served in France, tend to be concerned not with trenches and battle, but with life, loss, faith, and friendship, his longing for England, and the wife he left behind. Beginning in 1914, elements of his legendarium, ‘The Silmarillion’, began to appear, and the ‘Matter of Middle-earth’ would inspire much of Tolkien’s verse for the rest of his life.
Within The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien almost 200 works are presented across three volumes, including more than 70 that have never before been seen. The poems are deftly woven together with commentary and notes by world-renowned Tolkien scholars Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond, placing them in the context of Tolkien’s life and literary accomplishments and creating a poetical biography that is a unique and revealing celebration of J.R.R. Tolkien.
CHRISTINA SCULL is the former Librarian of Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, and editor of The Tolkien Collector. WAYNE G. HAMMOND is the Chapin Librarian emeritus at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and the author of standard bibliographies of J.R.R. Tolkien and Arthur Ransome. Together, they have written multiple Tolkien works, including J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, the three-volume J.R.R. Tolkien Companion & Guide, and produced editions Farmer Giles of Ham and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book.
Release: 12 September 2024
ISBN 978-0008628826
Three volume boxed set
Edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond
1620 pagesFrom a HarperCollins email[1]
Christina and Wayne have published background on how this book came into being on their blog: https://wayneandchristina.wordpress.co ... tolkiens-collected-poems/
From their blog post, we are told the following additional details:
- "The Amazon UK description gives its extent as 1,368 pages, which is close to the number in our typescript; in fact, the printed text will run to more than 1,500 pages."
- "There are at least 240 discrete poems, depending on how one distinguishes titles and versions, presented in 195 entries and five appendices. "
Further, in a reply below the editors add the following information:
- "The best we can say is that among the poems we include, 77 have not been published before in any form, or only a few lines from them have appeared, e.g. in Carpenter's biography."
The split of the poems are
- Volume 1 1910-1919
- Volume 2 1919-1931
- Volume 3 1931-1967
UK Trade
US Trade
UK eBook
US eBook
Audiobook
No information as yet
1 From a HarperCollins email ↩
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