And in case you already have de Camp's Swords and Sorcery (Beren seems to have sold his signed copy!), you might also want to get it for pure aesthetic concern - they make a nice pair on the bookshelf, having a similar yellow letters on a black background!

no it is back again... http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/dmiller/000971.htm by the way... I have been trying for hours and hours to transcribe this, but it is the hardest piece of Tolkien scribbles I have seen EVER... maybe we could set up a project here and try with many people to get this done?

If you could send me (Carl Hostetter) a clean scan I'm pretty sure I could transcribe most if not all of it. (I've seen, and transcribed, worse from Tolkien's pen!)

Ok you will send it over Carl! Exciting!

Glad to help. Please also include a copy of the table of contents of the volume it accompanies, as these notes are Tolkien's comments in review of the volume and cites some titles and authors.

I had them at hand (had already listed the contents for another website):

L. Sprague de Camp: "Introduction: Heroic Fantasy" (pp. 7-8)
Poul Anderson: "The Valor of Cappen Varra" (pp. 11-24)
Lord Dunsany: "Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller" (pp. 27-30)
Robert E. Howard: "Shadows in the Moonlight" (pp. 33-63)
Henry Kuttner: "The Citadel of Darkness" (pp. 67-93)
Fritz Leiber: "When the Sea King's Away" (pp. 97-119)
H.P. Lovecraft: "The Doom that came to Sarnath" (pp. 123-129)
C.L. Moore: "Hellsgarde" (pp. 133-165)
Clark Ashton Smith: "The Testament of Athammaus" (pp. 169-186)

Each contributing author gets a short introduction (hence the missing pages above).


Edit: added some links to free Guthenberg editions of some of the stories. Some of the others were also available online, but I'm unsure about the copyright status...

here you go...

Here's what I've got with a bit of work; I think I can get more in time.

======

Jirel of Joiry. Does create an atmosphere
and [?the] sinister 'corrupt' household of Alaric was
eerie and credible. But I never [sic] find phantasmal
struggles such as that of Jirel with 'Undead' Andred
quite unconvincing — especially when the victims escape!

Dunsany at his worst. Trying so hard for
the shudder. But not for a moment making the
tale 'credible' enough to {pro} make a background for
a strong [?e...]. And the ending lamentable — in
fact [?insulting]. In a world in which a Thangobrind
could even begin to be (let alone Hlo-hlo or [?all the rest])
early 19th century Riviera [?...] is surely utterly
impossible — or vice versa. And what is meant
by selling his daughter's soul.

Cappen Varra. Nomenclature v[ery] bad
Let us have genuine Scandanavian/Norse "bar-
barians" or something invented.

The Athammaus monster wholly unbelievable
[?…] disgusting [?... ... …]. There are lots
of ways of being [?... as] nastily, without all this
[?tooraloo] of nonsense.

Most of these things are overheated & exaggerated
([?...] bigger or [?would be] bigger, [?'...'] is
[?...] than the {ends} purposes warrant)
Also obviously over or ill-written.

Jirel of Joiry 140 - 146 is good but
needs a [?deft] story (and [?explication]) to [?...]
[?valid]. Dunsany's is one of his worst
That final ghastly paragraph!

Super let me check this evening with my text and see if I managed to fill in some blanks... but at first sight it seems you managed to complete many words that I could not read. Well done...

I'm so happy to see this text getting more complete. One does not often read so 'direct' comments by Tolkien on SF stories.