The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 2: Reader’s Guide PART 1. Christina Scull

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СКАЧАТЬ appendix contains extracts from Tolkien’s reworking of the beginning of the Lay of Leithian, c. 1949–50. The first describes Beren and Barahir’s secret refuge (‘The Lay of Leithian Recommenced’, lines 173–98), then follows Gorlim’s treachery, with Sauron replacing Morgoth as its instigator, and Beren’s escape south (lines 199–592). This is followed by a ‘List of Names in the Original Text’ (not an index) ‘intended to assist a reader who cannot recall, among the mass of names (and forms of names), the reference of one that may be of significance in the narrative’ (Beren and Lúthien, p. 274). Some of the rarer names are given fuller explanation. Finally there is a glossary of ‘words (including forms and meanings of worlds differing from modern usage)’ (p. 286), with page references.

      HISTORY

      In his preface to this book Christopher Tolkien refers to a detailed study he made of the evolution of his father’s ‘Silmarillion’ writings following the publication of his own edition, The Silmarillion, in 1977. In 1981 he wrote to *Rayner Unwin about this study which he called The History of The Silmarillion:

      In theory, I could produce a lot of books out of the History, and there are many possibilities and combinations of possibilities. For example, I could do ‘Beren’, with the original Lost Tale, The Lay of Leithian, and an essay on the development of the legend. My preference, if it came to anything so positive, would probably be for the treating of one legend as a developing entity, rather than give all the Lost Tales at one go; but the difficulties of exposition in detail would in such a case be great, because one would have to explain so often what was happening elsewhere, in other unpublished writings.

      He told Unwin ‘that I would enjoy writing a book called “Beren” on the lines I suggested: but the problem would be its organization, so that the matter was comprehensible without the editor becoming overpowering’ (p. 10).

      Now after many years during which ‘a large part of the immense store of manuscripts pertaining to the First Age, or Elder Days, has been published, in close and detailed editions; chiefly in volumes of *The History of Middle-earth’ (p. 11), Christopher returned to his original idea. Had it been published then, it ‘would have brought to light much hitherto unknown and unavailable writing. But this book [Beren and Lúthien] does not offer a single page of original and unpublished work. What then is the need, now, for such a book?’ In The History of Middle-earth the story of Beren and Lúthien, written by Tolkien during a wide span of years, is spread over several books and entangled with other events. ‘To follow the story … as a single and well-defined narrative’ (p. 12) is not easy. For the present book, then, on the one hand Christopher has

      tried to separate the story of Beren and Tinúviel (Lúthien) so that it stands alone, so far as that can be done (in my opinion) without distortion. On the other hand, I have wished to show how this fundamental story evolved over the years. In my foreword to the first volume of The Book of Lost Tales I said of the changes in the stories …

      development was seldom by outright rejection – far more often it was by subtle transformation in stages, so that the growth of the legends (the process, for instance, by which the Nargothrond story made contact with that of Beren and Lúthien, a contact not even hinted at in the Lost Tales, though both elements were present) can seem like the growth of legends among peoples, the product of many minds and generations.

      It is an essential feature … that these developments … are shown in my father’s own words, for the method that I have employed is the extraction of passages from much longer manuscripts in prose or verse written over many years. [pp. 12–13]

      Christopher notes that this brings ‘to light passages of close description or dramatic immediacy that are lost in the summary, condensed manner characteristic of so much Silmarillion narrative writing’, as well as elements ‘that were later altogether lost’ (p. 13), such as Tevildo, Prince of Cats.

      Finally, acknowledging that the volumes of The History of Middle-earth ‘may well present a deterrent aspect, it was Christopher’s ‘hope, in composing this book, that it would show how the creation of an ancient legend of Middle-earth, changing and growing over many years, reflected the search of the author for a presentation of the myth nearer to his desire’ (p. 14). Since ‘the decision of what to include and what to exclude … could only be a matter of personal and often questionable judgement … there can be no attainable “correct way”’ (p. 16).

      We should note, in case of changes to the text or page breaks of Beren and Lúthien in the eleventh hour, that we have written this article on the basis of a proof copy, kindly provided us by HarperCollins in advance of publication.

Berkshire. In summer 1912 Tolkien went on a walking tour in this county in the south-east of England, where he made several drawings and watercolours. He was especially interested in the local landscape and buildings, such as the church of St Michael, founded in Anglo-Saxon times but rebuilt in various periods, at Lambourn where King Alfred once had a manor. Tolkien drew its late Norman west doorway, a detail of its keystone, and a gargoyle above a Gothic window. (See Artist and Illustrator, figs. 11, 13.) He also went to East-bury, where he drew the High Street and picturesque thatched cottages (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 12), one of which still stands. In later years he was attracted, with his family, to the Vale of the White Horse with its famous stylized figure of a horse, around 374 feet long, cut into the grass on a chalk hillside c. 100 BC, and the ancient long-barrow known as Wayland’s Smithy (c. 2000 BC).

      All three of Tolkien’s sons attended the Oratory School when it was located at Caversham, near Reading in Berkshire. When he returned to Oxford in 1972 after his wife’s death Tolkien often visited his youngest son, *Christopher, who at that time lived with his wife and children in the village of West Hanney in Berkshire (since 1974 part of Oxfordshire).

      In his poems and stories the character Tom Bombadil, Tolkien said, was ‘the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside’ (letter to Stanley Unwin, 16 December 1937, Letters, p. 26), and the Barrow-downs near Tom’s home in *The Lord of the Rings (Book I, Chapter 8) may be indebted to the many prehistoric graves found in Berkshire.

Bibliographies. The standard history of the publication of Tolkien’s works is J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography by Wayne G. Hammond with the assistance of Douglas A. Anderson (1993). Except for a few minor omissions it is a comprehensive account (to mid-1992) of Tolkien’s books and the books to which he contributed, with details of content, binding, and textual changes in discrete editions and printings; of his contributions to periodicals, his published letters and art, interviews, recordings, and miscellanea; and of translations of his writings. Addenda and corrigenda to the Bibliography, as well as articles on Tolkien bibliography addressed to the serious enthusiast, have been published in the occasional magazine The Tolkien Collector (begun 1992). A second edition is planned. An online supplement and extension of the Bibliography, by Neil Holford, is at www.tolkienbooks.net.

      For concise checklists of Tolkien’s principal works, and of his published art and poetry, see the appendix in the second volume of the Reader’s Guide. Other checklists, created by fans and societies, may be found online, such as ‘A Chronological Bibliography of the Writings of J.R.R. Tolkien’ by Åke Bertenstam, at www.forodrim.org/arda/tbchron.html; most of these, however, are limited in detail and have not been kept up to date.

      The most important of the early bibliographies of writings about Tolkien, Tolkien Criticism: An Annotated Checklist by Richard C. West (1970, an expansion of a work that appeared in the journal Extrapolation for December 1968), today is useful chiefly for the picture it affords of Tolkien studies in their СКАЧАТЬ