Trotter wrote:

Stu wrote:
Daniel Grotta almost certainly had fair use doctrine on his side when it came to reprinting his (non-contentious but unauthorised) biography, but he chose not to out of fear of the Estate and its alleged nastiness when he first wrote it.

I am just looking at my copy of his non-contentious biography

"For a time, Mabel Suffield had tried to teach Christianity to the Sultan of Zanzibar's harem."

Did Daniel Grotta think or believe this statement was correct when he wrote it, he gives no clues as to any evidence that he may have had access to, or did he just make it up?

This quote was used by William Ready in the The Tolkien Relation and some people today still think it is correct

I am not a fan of any books that make up items about J.R.R. Tolkien and his family, that readers may believe are true

Grotta wrote his biography before Humphrey Carpenter's, against - apparently - a backdrop of obfuscation from the estate. I'm sure that there may be errors in it, but I have not read anywhere that it is full of fabrications. To judge it against a work written subsequently, directly for the estate (with the estate's full cooperation, rather than obfuscation) seems unreasonable.

The Carpenter biography is the official view of Tolkien, as sanctioned by the estate. It seems foolhardy to think that it could be the only version of the "facts" that might have merit or that it must be complete in all regards. I'm sure all the biographies have their failings, some more so than others. All of them, even Carpenter's probably contain things that are fabrications or distortions.

I'm not being "pro" this new book, as I suspect it will be a work of fiction, but to blindly assume everything that Carpenter wrote was the "whole truth and nothing but the truth" is incredibly naive.

Deagol wrote:
This one will be interesting:

J.R.R.Tolkien: Codemaker, Spy-master, Hero: au unauthorised biography

by Elan Sea (Author), Mr Alexander Lewis (Consultant Editor), Ms Elizabeth Currie (Consultant Editor)

I don't recommend this but if you want to get a signed, only by the editors and not the author, and numbered edition of this book then you can get it here, my recommendation is not to bother, they want £60 as well

http://shop.festivalartandbooks.com/b ... ed-and-numbered-521-p.asp

Trotter wrote:

Deagol wrote:
This one will be interesting:

J.R.R.Tolkien: Codemaker, Spy-master, Hero: au unauthorised biography

by Elan Sea (Author), Mr Alexander Lewis (Consultant Editor), Ms Elizabeth Currie (Consultant Editor)

I don't recommend this but if you want to get a signed, only by the editors and not the author, and numbered edition of this book then you can get it here, my recommendation is not to bother, they want £60 as well

http://shop.festivalartandbooks.com/b ... ed-and-numbered-521-p.asp

Am I the only one who thinks they put zero effort into the cover, which is odd after writing so many words?

I don't recall having seen the cover for the UK paperback edition of The Fall of Arthur until now.

It is out on the 21st May 2015 in the UK.

NEWS ABOUT THE STORY OF KULLERVO BOOK

This book will contain 192 pages, a beatiful hardcover format, and here is the announcement:

''The world first publication of a previously unknown work of fantasy by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the powerful story of a doomed young man who is sold into slavery and who swears revenge on the magician who killed his father.
Kullervo son of Kalervo is perhaps the darkest and most tragic of all J.R.R. Tolkien’s characters. ‘Hapless Kullervo’, as Tolkien called him, is a luckless orphan boy with supernatural powers and a tragic destiny.
Brought up in the homestead of the dark magician Untamo, who killed his father, kidnapped his mother, and who tries three times to kill him when still a boy, Kullervo is alone save for the love of his twin sister, Wanona, and guarded by the magical powers of the black dog, Musti. When Kullervo is sold into slavery he swears revenge on the magician, but he will learn that even at the point of vengeance there is no escape from the cruellest of fates.
Tolkien himself said that The Story of Kullervo was ‘the germ of my attempt to write legends of my own’, and was ‘a major matter in the legends of the Frist Age’. Tolkien’s Kullervo is the clear ancestor of Túrin Turambar, tragic incestuous hero of The Silmarillion. In addition to it being a powerful story in its own right, The Story of Kullervo, published here for the first time with the author’s drafts, notes and lecture-essays on its source-work, the Kalevala, is a foundation stone in the structure of Tolkien’s invented world''

The Sunday Times article about the Story of Kullervo by J.R.R. Tolkien. Includes a photo of Tolkien that I dont remember have to be already published:

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/article1565746.ece

The story of kullervo - official cover :

Beautiful!

Is this an expanded version of the material published in Tolkien Studies Vol. 7? (which I haven't read)

http://www.tolkiensociety.org/2015/07 ... ok-the-story-of-kullervo/

"HarperCollins have officially announced that J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Story of Kullervo will be released in an edition edited by Verlyn Flieger on 27th August this year.

“The Story of Kullervo” was written by Tolkien in 1914 and was his own reworking and re-imagining of part of the tale of the Finnish saga Kalevala. The story is significant in the development of Tolkien’s legendarium as it provided the basis for Túrin Turambar, a tragic hero of The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin.

Verlyn Flieger, who has also edited Smith of Wootton Major and Tolkien On Fairy-stories, first published “The Story of Kullervo” in 2010 in Tolkien Studies: Volume 7. This edition, available in hardback for £16.99 on the 27th August, follows the similar publications of The Fall of Arthur, Beowulf and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún. The official information from the publishers states:

Kullervo son of Kalervo is perhaps the darkest and most tragic of all J.R.R. Tolkien’s characters. ‘Hapless Kullervo’, as Tolkien called him, is a luckless orphan boy with supernatural powers and a tragic destiny.

Brought up in the homestead of the dark magician Untamo, who killed his father, kidnapped his mother, and who tries three times to kill him when still a boy, Kullervo is alone save for the love of his twin sister, Wanona, and guarded by the magical powers of the black dog, Musti. When Kullervo is sold into slavery he swears revenge on the magician, but he will learn that even at the point of vengeance there is no escape from the cruelest of fates.

Tolkien himself said that The Story of Kullervo was ‘the germ of my attempt to write legends of my own’, and was ‘a major matter in the legends of the First Age’. Tolkien’s Kullervo is the clear ancestor of Túrin Turambar, tragic incestuous hero of The Silmarillion. In addition to it being a powerful story in its own right, The Story of Kullervo – published here for the first time with the author’s drafts, notes and lecture-essays on its source-work, The Kalevala – is a foundation stone in the structure of Tolkien’s invented world."