Unfinished Tales 40th Anniversary Illustrated Edition Cover Reveal

At long last, HarperCollins has revealed the cover art for the upcoming 40th anniversary illustrated edition of Unfinished Tales.

As you can see from the above image, it'll 'match', design and measurement-wise with The Great Tales books (The Children of Hurin, Beren and Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin) and the forthcoming new editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (as 3 books).

There will be a slipcased collector's edition as well, though no image for that one yet.

I was hoping that the above image ("The Blue Wizards Journeying East" from Ted Nasmith) would be used for the cover, going by the fact that it will be used for the 2021 Calendar. I still like the Alan Lee cover art, though I guess I got my hopes too high.

Expect this edition to come out October of this year. US fans, yes, you'll be getting it as well, though from Houghton Mifflin.

Here's the info for the standard edition. I'll provide it again on publication day, as the next post relating to this will be for the slipcased collector's edition. The publication day post will feature info for both formats, as well as a last-call for the calendar. The calendars aren't usually hard to come by - if you order them fast. I think there's only one print run. 

ISBN: 9780008387952

"To celebrate its 40th anniversary, the first ever illustrated edition of this collection of tales which takes readers further into the stories told in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, featuring 18 full-colour paintings depicting scenes from the First, Second and Third Ages of Middle-earth.

Unfinished Tales is a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth to the end of the War of the Ring, and provides those who have read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with a whole collection of background and new stories.

The book concentrates on the realm of Middle-earth and comprises such elements as The Quest of Erebor, Gandalf’s lively account of how it was that he came to send the Dwarves to the celebrated party at Bag-End; the emergence of the sea-god Ulmo before the eyes of Tuor on the coast of Beleriand; and an exact description of the military organization of the Riders of Rohan.

Unfinished Tales also contains the only story about the long ages of Númenor before its downfall, and all that is known about such matters as the Five Wizards, the Palantíri and the legend of Amroth. The tales were edited by Christopher Tolkien, who provides a short commentary on each story, helping the reader to fill in the gaps and put each story into the context of the rest of his father’s writings.

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, this new edition features 18 stunning paintings from critically acclaimed Tolkien artists, Alan Lee, John Howe & Ted Nasmith, which reveal the three Ages of Middle-earth like never before."

Here is also an extract from the official J.R.R. Tolkien facebook page about Christopher Tolkien and the role he played in his father's legacy:

"The working relationship between father and son was lifelong and unique. An editor since he was 5 years old, catching inconsistencies in his father’s bedtime tales, Christopher was promised by his father tuppence for every mistake he noticed in The Hobbit; as a young man he was typing up manuscripts and drawing maps of Middle-earth, and around the time Christopher was commissioned an officer in the RAF in 1945, Tolkien was already calling his son ‘my chief critic and collaborator’.

For Christopher’s entire life, his father’s legendarium had been an essential part of his world. He himself said: ‘As strange as it may seem, I grew up in the world he created. For me, the cities of The Silmarillion are more real than Babylon.’ And as Tolkien realized that he would not personally be able to bring his life’s work to a publishable conclusion he and Christopher discussed in close detail how this might eventually be achieved. Christopher diligently followed his father’s wishes and The Silmarillion was published in 1977, just four years after his father’s death. It was an international bestseller, selling more than one million copies in the UK alone.

Having retired as Fellow and Tutor at Oxford in the same field of medieval English and philology as his father, Christopher would now dedicate his time to sharing his father’s work with the world, and this meant sorting through 70 boxes of disordered papers and manuscripts which he had taken with him as he and his family began a new life in France. Contained within these boxes was a tangled treasure-house of notes, drafts, alternative versions of tales and much besides that had been seen by J.R.R. Tolkien alone.

Unpacking these boxes was a voyage of discovery that would reconnect Christopher with his father, and it was a connection that would ultimately absorb him for the rest of his life. But his first, most important task was to present to a growing and more discerning audience further tales that would expand their appreciation and enjoyment of Middle-earth. Unlike The Silmarillion, here Christopher had sole responsibility for which stories would be included, which version of their numerous drafts would be favoured and how much editorial intrusion would be allowed in order to achieve a publishable text – equally significantly, here for the first time Christopher would allow his own voice to be heard alongside his father’s as he gave readers a privileged insight into the complex editorial process, while at the same time revealing fascinating historical and explanatory notes that J.R.R. Tolkien had made when writing the stories. For anyone who had lost themselves in the tales of The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, this new collection – modestly titled Unfinished Tales – was a precious gift indeed, and one that could only have been made possible thanks to the tireless dedication and talent of Christopher Tolkien.

Christopher would continue his quiet, scholarly endeavours for the next four decades, producing many further volumes that have enriched our understanding of Middle-earth, from his monumental 12-volume History through to the three books that would be the capstone to his literary achievement: The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin.

As well, unique in his capacities as a scholar in both Middle-earth and the academic field he shared with his father, he also produced editions of J.R.R Tolkien’s non-Middle-earth works: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Beowulf, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún and The Fall of Arthur.

It is impossible not to feel the weight of the legacy Christopher Tolkien has borne. He never wrote any Middle-earth stories of his own – just editing The Silmarillion gave him nightmares of his father’s disapproval. However, he was in 2016 awarded the prestigious Bodley Medal by the University of Oxford in recognition of his ‘outstanding contribution to the world of literature, culture, science and communication’. And with the publication of this new edition of Unfinished Tales we have an opportunity to re-enter the unique world of Middle-earth and marvel anew at the literary brilliance of both Tolkiens, father and son."