Tolkien's ON FAIRY STORIES Expanded Edition in Paper

[Extollager]

Here's an announcement of note:

Tolkien and Fantasy: Lo! Beowulf and Other Topics

The Expanded Edition was out in hardcover several years ago, but, so far as I know, not in an American edition. It looks to me like this paperback will have an American edition.

This is something for the serious Tolkien reader. For most American readers, the text as printed in Ballantine's Tolkien Reader should be fine. However, for those who are interested in seeing things that Tolkien pruned from that version, here's the book. It's interesting to see Tolkien refer to M. R. James's classic Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. (I have argued that his conception of Gollum may -- seriously! -- owe something to James's "Canon Alberic's Scrapbook," and to the James McBryde illustration that gives a glimpse of its alarming haunter:

I prize also Tolkien's remarks on J. M. Barrie's really eerie play, Mary Rose, which was recently successfully revived.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Good news! Thank you for sharing it. I've just put the book on my Wish List so I can buy it when it comes out.

 

[F. A. Real H.]

Thanks a lot for the good news! I'm definitely interested in reading a "complete" version of such a relevant discussion on Fantasy—and its topics—as presented by Tolkien on On Fairy Stories.

 

[Extollager]

I have a certain article topic in mind that, if I ever get into it, will be indebted to this variorum-type edition of On Fairy-Stories....

 

[Corbier]

Interesting, Extollager...