Signed by the Prancing Pony wrote:

A while ago I decided I really wanted a copy of The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, edited by Christopher Tolkien. I know there's a POD edition available from Harper Collins UK, but I'm glad I tracked down the 1960 edition, it's a much finer piece of book making (and somehow feels more 'real').

'Nelson's Iceland Texts' was the short lived series that Christopher Tolkien's edition was part of. In the late 50s - early 60s they had high hopes of publishing a large series of Icelandic sagas with full critical notes and facing page English translation. But sadly they weren't commercially successful and only four volumes were ever published.

I've been trying to track them down. The Saga of the Jomsvikings came in the post today. Leaving just one more to find - 'The Saga of the Volsungs', but it seems very hard to find.

They're beautiful books and make great companions to my Tolkien collection proper. Just wish I could find the fourth

Briefly discussed here too if interested:
https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/n ... php?topic_id=3615&start=0

".. The other Nelson I have is the Volsunga Saga. Looks nice next to CT's! ;).."*

Thanks - that's a really really interesting thread!

The Saga of the Voslungs in the Nelson series is the hardest to find - it was the last volume published before the series was deemed non-viable, and might have had a fairly small print run. Of at least a dozen planned volumes only four ever made it to print.

Over and above the fact that Christopher Tolkien edited one of the volumes, the series would have been of interest to people who care about Tolkien because there were plans to edit and translate several more of the 'fornaldarsaga' - sagas drawing on stories of 'ancient times' before the settlement of Iceland. But it was not to be.

*Please forgive the clumsy formatting, I haven't figured out how to get quotes / in-line images etc to format properly (in my defence I only joined 2 hours ago)

What I'd love to do with those Nelson's texts, is send the free (legally) .PDFs off somewhere that prints books from a file source, and bind all 3 in one book - hopefully, hardback format if not too pricey.

What years did they come out in? I'd like to arrange them by publication year. I know that Christopher Tolkien's The Saga of King Heidrek came out in 1960.

insurrbution wrote:

What I'd love to do with those Nelson's texts, is send the free (legally) .PDFs off somewhere that prints books from a file source, and bind all 3 in one book - hopefully, hardback format if not too pricey.

What years did they come out in? I'd like to arrange them by publication year. I know that Christopher Tolkien's The Saga of King Heidrek came out in 1960.

Christopher passed earlier this year, so you will have to wait another 70 years for his works to fall out of copyright... I haven't dug into the other authors in this series, but I expect they are also under copyright for many years to come as well.

Not at all, all volumes in the series are freely and legally available in PDF from the The Viking Society for Northern Research:

http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Th ... laug%20Serpent-Tongue.pdf

http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Th ... 0Heidrek%20The%20Wise.pdf

http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Sa ... f%20the%20Jomsvikings.pdf

http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Volsunga%20saga.pdf

Did you read the second paragraph on the Viking Society site?

These digital versions are not intended to replace our printed publications, and titles currently in print will remain available to buy in book form as long as there is a demand for them (the list can be seen at www.vsnr.org/publications/ ). The digital versions are intended to make the range of our publications known to a wider public, and may be used for reference purposes, to evaluate books for purchase or for university courses and for private study. The copyright belongs either to the authors or to the Viking Society, as stated at the beginning of each work, and permission must be obtained from the Society to use downloaded versions either in whole or in part for any other purpose.

It's not like I'll being this self-published book: just printing something that's been available for free, legally, for a while; and getting it bound. No harm no foul. What difference does it make if I read it on a screen or make my own physical copy for private/non-financial purposes?

Sorry, I misread your earlier post - I was talking about availability, not copyright!

My mistake, should have read more carefully

Ah, no worries! If I COULD (ie if they were still in print) get the others - King Heidrek is available as a POD via HarperCollins (in fact, I own it), but none of the others.

insurrbution wrote:

It's not like I'll being this self-published book: just printing something that's been available for free, legally, for a while; and getting it bound. No harm no foul. What difference does it make if I read it on a screen or make my own physical copy for private/non-financial purposes?

Christopher (his estate now) owns the copyright on his work. He has not given you permission to "make my own physical copy". So the harm/foul is that the publisher has given you a wonderful gift (the pdf for your own private study) and you are giving them the middle finger and taking more than they explicitly gave.

The damage this does, is that publishers get tired of having their gifts be abused, and they stop giving the gifts. Copyright theft leads to more draconian enforcement, and less gifts, and everyone is unhappy.