The Fireside

  Coming this August, is The Great Tales Trilogy as a boxed set! Finally! Both HarperCollins and William Morrow will be publishing this: HarperCollins:  9780008360108 William Morrow:  9780063447981 The Great Tales of Middle-earth  is a beautiful box set of the three final novels of Middle-earth:  The Children of Húrin ,  Beren and Lúthien , and  The Fall of Gondolin , packaged together and ready for gifting. Completing Christopher Tolkien’s lifelong achievement as the curator of his father J.R.R. Tolkien’s manuscripts,  The Great Tales  features handsome color plates and maps by famed illustrator Alan Lee and a map by Christopher Tolkien. The Children of Húrin  was the first standalone story by J.R.R. Tolkien since the 1977 publication of  The Silmarillion . Six thousand years before the One Ring is destroyed, Middle-earth lies under the shadow of the Dark Lord Morgoth. The greatest heroes among elves and men have perished, and all ...

  The product image for the collector's edition of The Nature of Middle-earth has been revealed. The ISBN is 9780008440572 , and you can pre-order it any time before publication date through the usual avenues for these releases. Some retailers may not have it up yet; so as long as you check one month until publication date, latest, you'll be fine. Here's the official description: This elegant slipcased edition presents for collectors the first ever publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s final writings on Middle-earth, covering a wide range of subjects. Stamped in gold foil, and printed on heavyweight acid-free paper, it includes a ribbon marker and is housed in a custom-built matching slipcase. It is well known that J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937 and The Lord of the Rings in 1954–5. What may be less known is that he continued to write about Middle-earth in the decades that followed, right up until the years before his death in 1973. For him, Middle-earth wa...

  Here's yet another Tolkien-related post! This post, however, announces the publication of The Nature of Middle-earth . As you can see by the editor title, this is first Tolkien book since Chistopher Tolkien had passed away. It's unclear at this point (and will likely be covered in an introduction/forward/preface) if Christopher wanted to work on this title himself. It should be worth noting that Christopher Tolkien gave this book his blessing, much like he did for The History of The Hobbit .  The ISBN for it is 9780008387921, and there's no word yet on a collector's edition. It may not happen. After all, there's no collector's edition of The History of The Hobbit . The product description follows: First ever publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s final writings on Middle-earth, covering a wide range of subjects and perfect for those who have read and enjoyed The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings, Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-earth, and want to le...

  The Tolkien illustrated collection: variation 2 includes this year's hardback boxed set of The Hobbit + The Lord of the Rings , the three great tales books in hardback, and the recently published illustrated edition of Unfinished Tales . The illustrated collection: variation 1 includes The Hobbit in hardback from 1997, The Lord of the Rings hardback boxed set from 2002, and The Silmarillion hardback from 2004 (there have been a few different illustrated editions of those titles, though the size dimensions do not 'match' one another). However, there is one title currently missing from The Tolkien illustrated collection variation 2 - The Silmarillion . There are two illustrated editions by Ted Nasmith - one from 1998, the other from 2004. The 1998 one had about the usual number of illustrations as per usual for an illustrated edition of a Tolkien book (between 16 and 20). It also had a 'mixed' paper type: regular for text, photo style for the illustrations. The ...

  40 years ago today marks the publication of Unfinished Tales (sometimes titled as Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth ) . It's written by Tolkien, and edited by Christopher Tolkien. It is the last of my 'Middle-earth essentials' (the other being The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion ). The book expands upon aspects of The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion that go well with those stories. With the way that Unfinished Tales is presented, it can sort of seen as 'an extended appendix.' Note, that doesn't mean that this book REPLACES the Appendices in The Lord of the Rings . I've always wondered where each chapter of what is known as Unfinished Tales today WOULD have fit in, had they been included in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion . The chapter The Quest For Erebor, for instance, would most likely have been in The Lord of the Rings , as part of one of the Appendices. The work was also the very beginning of the ...

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 ...

HarperCollins looks set to re-publish the Tolkien illustrated editions. These have been in print ever since 1997, 2002 and 2004 from Houghton Mifflin (the US Tolkien publisher), though HarperCollins has discontinued these for a bit. Note these are the "UK editions" and as such, should be bought off of a UK-based bookseller: (Amazon UK, Blackwell's Waterstones, etc) to garuntee stock actually arriving to those retailers. There is no official cover art yet, but it looks to be very close to the 1997, 2002 and 2004 publications of the illustrated titles. The price seems to be indicative that that's the case. In that sense, they should all 'match.' I know that's important to some of you - myself included - so I'll be following this until it's published to see what the size dimensions are, and relay the info here. Images used are from the illustrated editions of the '00s. All titles are to be released May 14, 2020. Here are the ISBN #s - a direct ...

Amazon Prime's Middle-earth series is now somewhat underway. Not long ago, they had created a Facebook page for the project: https://www.facebook.com/ LOTRonPrime/   , as well as a website: amazon.com/lotronprime . Aside from the map, not much has been uploaded yet. However, should you be interested in following the project, official updates will be there. I look forward to following the project as it progresses: cast, poster, trailer....and any associated merchandise. Hopefully, the merchandise won't be restricted to "Prime Members Only." I'm curious what types of merchandise and products we can expect to see associated with this. I remember from 2001-2003 HarperCollins drastically increased production on Tolkien items - both related to Peter Jackson's films and not. Can we expect to see some new editions, beyond imagery used as book covers? Also, back then bookstores were book stores - not like today where they are department stores that happen to se...

I wanted to do a write up of my thoughts about the upcoming Amazon  Lord of the Rings  (or, rather, “Middle-earth”) series. Before I do so, however, there are some points that need to be made: 1) They are  only  using (and only allowed to use) material found within the pages of the books known as  The Hobbit  and  The Lord of the Rings , or from any of the six Peter Jackson films. (More on that to follow.) That means, anything found within the pages of  The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales,  or the History of Middle-earth is off-limits. 2) In terms of Middle-earth’s timeline, it will take place between  The Hobbit  and  The Lord of the Rings . If it takes place in the First or Second Age, it’ll be based on what Jackson has shown us in  Rings , or what was written in  The Lord of the Rings  that references those eras. Where it might get tricky is Beren and Luthien: Aragorn sang a song about them in  T...

  Since the announcement of the Amazon Middle-earth series (which will take place after The Hobbit: Part 3 but before The Fellowship of the Ring ) I’ve been mulling things over. First off, all the major news announcements etc have said “Lord of the Rings”. In terms of plot , that is simply not true – we are not going from Hobbiton to Mount Doom with Frodo etc. HOWEVER , the material in which the Amazon series will be based on is found within the pages of the book known as The Lord of the Rings , or to be more precise, The Return of the King . It will be based on what is found within the Appendices, most likely. A re-boot or remake of the Peter Jackson films to me would be a terrible idea. Any adaptation has changes from its source material from one medium into another. The films have been very well received by both critics and fans. The Hobbit films, is another manner. Opinion on them is a bit more more…divided. Since the Amazon series will most likely ‘supplement’ both ...

There seem to be new editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings headed our way in the fall [but not for The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales or Children of Hurin ?]   They are different from each other.       For The Hobbit , it was a reproduction of the very first edition ever published - before Tolkien revised it to better tie-in with Lord of the Rings [I'm not referring to his planned re-write after Lord of the Rings came out which he abandoned]. Most of us know of the current revised 'second' edition, as it had been in circulation longer than the original first book.    But now we are given a chance to read the complete original 1937 text. The description officially reads as: The Hobbit was published on 21 September 1937 with a print run of 1,500 copies. With a beautiful cover design by the author and a coloured frontispiece painting, the book proved to be popular and was reprinted within three ...