Timeline for Does The Nature of Middle-Earth contain new stories or just lore?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
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| Aug 29, 2021 at 15:55 | comment | added | ibid | @Wade - Most of the remaining material is either personal, academic, linguistic, or just more versions of previously published stuff. The linguistic stuff is slowly being published in specialized journals, but it's unclear if or when the rest will be. The demand for this type of material usually isn't enough to be worth the publishing costs. (Also, this is probably the most significant Tolkien publication in twenty-five years. It's a bit premature to already be asking about the next one.) | |
| Aug 29, 2021 at 11:36 | comment | added | Wade | Certainly, if it is one or the other, it is better to publish new content. But the two things can be done simultaneously - a person extracting stories from HoMe/NoMe doesn't even need access to the manuscripts. But is there new, unpublished material? Is Hostetter or somebody else working on publishing it? | |
| Aug 29, 2021 at 10:49 | comment | added | ibid | @Wade - There aren't really any such stories left to be published, so making new such books would require repackaging previously published material. (Which is what B&L and FoG are.) Personally I'd prefer they focus on publishing new material (like this book) to endlessly republishing old material in new formats. | |
| Aug 29, 2021 at 10:37 | comment | added | Wade | Sorry, I forgot to the most important word - a semi-complete story/story collection. Something with less emphasis on commentary and more on the stories, and featuring a narrative, not essays. I haven't yet read Beren & Luthien, but from looking through it, it seems there isn't that much commentary. I have no idea what it is like in UT or HoMe though. | |
| Aug 29, 2021 at 10:23 | history | edited | ibid | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Aug 29, 2021 at 10:18 | comment | added | ibid | @Wade - I'm not sure I understand the question. What do those four books share to make them considered "semi-complete" that this one does not? | |
| Aug 29, 2021 at 10:10 | comment | added | Wade | Oh, I get it. So it's too bad they didn't do it. Do you know whether the Tolkien Estate is planning on publishing any "new" semi-complete books? Such UT, Beren and Luthien, Fall of Gondolin, or even the Children of Hurin? Has the person who replaced Christopher expressed his plans for the Estate? In fact - are they planning to publish new books at all? | |
| Aug 29, 2021 at 10:05 | comment | added | ibid | @Wade - UT is a very mixed bag, and its introduction explains a bit about the nature of each work. In particular the "editorial trickery" I was referring to was done by "Aldarion and Erendis" to turn it from a time scheme into a narrative, and I think something very similar could have been done to "The March of the Quendi" and "Key Dates" in NoMe. | |
| Aug 29, 2021 at 9:53 | comment | added | Wade | Thank you, this is exactly the sort of answer I was looking for. But parts of what you say confuse me... I haven't yet read Unfinished Tales of HoMe, but I assumed that UT at least was really composed of story fragments that Tolkien wrote, and simply didn't finish. Isn't this the case? Is it really based on 'essays', turned into stories by means of 'editorial trickery'? That surprises me a great deal... | |
| Aug 29, 2021 at 9:51 | vote | accept | Wade | ||
| Aug 29, 2021 at 1:21 | history | answered | ibid | CC BY-SA 4.0 |