By insurrbution
Home away from home

So....What's Next?

1 Aug, 2020
2020-8-1 4:16:41 AM UTC

I am often curious about what can be next for new, unearthed Tolkien material.

Going by this http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Index:Unpublished_material , which items do you think would realistically be published by HarperCollins and Houghton Mifflin, in partial (part of a compilation or something) or as an entire book?

My picks:

- I can see some of the essays, lectures and notes being published in a Monsters and the Critics style publication. Specifically: The Beginnings of English Poetry, Concerning The Hoard (and The Kinship of the Half-Elven) could be included in a future edition of The Silmarillion), to give some examples
- fragments/extracts of The King of the Green Dozen, The Orgog (among some others) as a sort of Tales From the Perilous Realm style release.
- The Trumpets of Faerie
- Tales and Songs of Bimble Bay
- some items under the linguistics section could be added to future editions of existing titles, where relevant
- The Book of Ishness
- The Diaries of J.R.R. Tolkien (though I understand that this might be borderline 'private.')
- The Clarendon Chaucer
- Pwyll Prince of Dyved

What are your thoughts? I look forward to discussing Tolkien Yet to Come!

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gobbledygook
Quite a regular

1 Aug, 2020
2020-8-1 8:48:58 AM UTC

There's an essay titled "On the translation of poetry" and I think that would fit quite nicely into his body of work, especially if it was given a treatment like some of his other essays. There's also a lot of his unpublished poetry that could be a part of the same book or something.
Anything related to Welsh, Beowulf and OE body of literature is as they say, my cup of tea and I'd kill for it.

On the other hand, I'd hate to see his diaries. There are some things that ought to be private and by that very definition - sacred. Publishing his diaries would be, at least in my opinion, a step too far.

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onthetrail
Home away from home

1 Aug, 2020
2020-8-1 9:48:37 AM UTC

gobbledygook wrote:
I'd hate to see his diaries. There are some things that ought to be private and by that very definition - sacred. Publishing his diaries would be, at least in my opinion, a step too far.

I would love to see his diaries, not a warts and all treatment but I think done as part of a volume on his academic life would be nice. It would work well to have his diaries and letters related to each other brought together with notes, unfinished drafts, and unpublished matter.

I obviously want more letters as pointed out above. The single volume is rather lackluster when compared to other figures from his time and the only reason seems that the estate wants to keep them unpublished.

It is a literary crime IMO that a volume of his early poetry has not been published. Especially as it was considered worthy publishing a 100 page book in the case of The Lay of Aotrou & Itroun. I note that there has been some valuable publications (Scull & Hammond's expanded Bombadil being the obvious one) but there should be a chronological collection of those early poems that are hard to come by along with unpublished texts.

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Stu

1 Aug, 2020
2020-8-1 9:37:17 PM UTC

I personally think diaries should stay private unless the writer has indicated otherwise. I know my wife keeps a diary, and if she pre-deceased me, I would burn it. The contents are none of my business.

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onthetrail
Home away from home

2 Aug, 2020
2020-8-2 11:35:17 AM UTC

Stu wrote:
I personally think diaries should stay private unless the writer has indicated otherwise. I know my wife keeps a diary, and if she pre-deceased me, I would burn it. The contents are none of my business.

Are you talking about a diary or a journal here Stu? I would agree a journal or certainly the journal[centric] entries in a diary should remain private unless the author approves their publication but in the case of Tolkien his diaries are important documents of his life and work.

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insurrbution
Home away from home

2 Aug, 2020
2020-8-2 4:40:00 PM UTC

I understand that the diaries are most likely considered private by the Estate, though it was still mentioned on the list of unpublished material. Not that automatically means it'll get published, just that it exists

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