The Pocket Farmer Giles of Ham

The fiftieth anniversary edition of Farmer Giles of Ham, which we edited in 1999 with an introduction and notes, the text of the first, manuscript version of the work, Tolkien’s notes for a sequel, and a map of the ‘Little Kingdom’ by Pauline Baynes, will return to print in a ‘pocket’ edition from HarperCollins. This is due to be published on 27 February 2014. Pauline Baynes’s upper cover art for the 1978 edition has been adapted once again, now with a blackletter capital ‘H’ in ‘Ham’ to suggest the mock-medieval nature of Tolkien’s tale. HarperCollins asked if we had any corrections to make to our text; we pointed them to our addenda and corrigenda here, and will be interested to see what can be done, space permitting.

Blackwell’s Rare Books

Once upon a time in The Tolkien Collector, we used to collect entries for Tolkien items offered in booksellers’ and auction catalogues. We gave that up eventually, when the majority of offerings were made online, in electronic catalogues or through services such as abebooks and eBay. But some dealers still issue catalogues, and we take note of Tolkien offerings when they appear, mainly to see how much a particular book is bringing now in the marketplace (and usually to be glad that we already have it and didn’t pay quite so much). In Blackwell’s Rare Books (Oxford) latest Antiquarian & Modern catalogue, a copy of the first one-volume paperback Lord of the Rings (Allen & Unwin, 1968) is listed at £200 (item 252), spine ‘lightly faded’ and with ‘minor rubbing along edges’ and ‘a small crease’ in the bottom corner of both panels illustrated by Pauline Baynes. Also in the catalogue, as item 253 and priced at £300, is a copy of the Society of Antiquaries Report on the Excavation of the Prehistoric, Roman, and Post-Roman Site in Lydney Park (1932), containing Tolkien’s appendix ‘The Name “Nodens”’. This is said to have ‘occasional light foxing’ and the binding ‘sunned overall with two small damp-spots to [the] back cover’, spine slightly worn, and ‘edges browned’.

The Family Tree of Fairy Folk

Maud and Miska Petersham, husband and wife illustrators beloved in Wayne’s childhood, are the subject of a recent book by Lawrence Webster, Under the North Light: the Life and Work of Maud and Miska Petersham (Woodstockarts, 2012). Late in life, after Miska’s death, Maud planned to publish a Who’s Who in Fairylore, and for this sketched ‘The Family Tree of Fairy Folk’, in one corner of which is a hobbit relaxing with his pipe.

Another Inch

On October 3rd, we had just received the new regular and de luxe British editions of The Hobbit, illustrated by Jemima Catlin, and as described in our previous post, Christina had just reorganized our Hobbit bookcase to allow for growth. When it came time to put away the new copies, however, we found that the new editions were too tall for the space! and Christina needed to revise our Hobbit shelves once again. Library management is never-ending.

The Lord of the Rings New Editions

The post this week has brought two new editions of The Lord of the Rings. First to arrive was the ‘collector’s edition’ by HarperCollins, with each of the three hardcover volumes bound in decorated cloth and issued without dust-jackets. The text is that of the fiftieth anniversary edition, with the expanded index, the general map of Middle-earth printed in black and red on each front endsheet, and the map of Rohan, Gondor, and Mordor in black and red on each back endsheet. Although these volumes are available separately, we bought them in a slipcased set with the recent ‘collector’s edition’ Hobbit: each volume of The Lord of the Rings in our copy is the first printing, and The Hobbit is the third.

We have also had the new deluxe edition published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, bound in a dark grey suede-like cloth (leatherette) with deep black and gold lettering and decoration. The outer corners of both the boards and the pages are rounded. The bottom margin is cut unusually close for a hardcover, and the binding is tight though flexible. Again, the text is that of the fiftieth anniversary edition, with the expanded index; the larger maps are printed, in black only, at the end of the volume. The 2013 HMH catalogue describes this as a ‘pocket edition’, which at 8¼ × 6 × 2¼ in. presupposes a large pocket. The catalogue also calls for ‘gilt edges’ but the only gilt is applied to the rings stamped on the upper cover and spine.

Tolkien Studies in New Casebooks

J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, a book of commissioned essays edited by noted children’s literature specialist Peter Hunt, has just been published by Palgrave Macmillan in the Children’s Literature subset of their series New Casebooks. As usual when we receive a new Tolkien-related book, we turned first to its bibliography, to see which sources have been used, and if any essential or more up-to-date references have been omitted – often a good method for judging the quality of a book in advance of reading. In this case, instead of documenting the works cited by the essay authors (for which one must look at individual sets of endnotes), Hunt makes suggestions for ‘Further Reading’. About half of these are works on Tolkien in particular, with the rest on fantasy and children’s literature in general.

Under the heading ‘On Tolkien’s life’, Hunt lists only four works: Carpenter’s Biography, Tolkien’s Letters, John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War, and Carpenter’s The Inklings. All well and good: but (though it’s hardly modest for us to ask) where is our J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, with its long Chronology, numerous biographical Guide entries, and substantial information not published elsewhere? Seven years on since its publication, one can no longer claim that the Companion and Guide is new and unfamiliar; and indeed, Hunt does include it, but in the section ‘On Tolkien’s work’. There he writes:

Tolkien may well be unrivalled for the ‘comprehensive’ reference works devoted to him. Every possible (it might seem) cultural and literary reference in his books is tracked in J.E.A. Taylor’s [sic] The Complete Tolkien Companion, 3rd edn (London: Pan, 2002). But that book’s 736 pages pale beside the nearly 1000 pages of Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull’s The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion (London: HarperCollins, 2008 [i.e. the revised trade paperback]), which is in its turn dwarfed by the 2304 pages of Hammond and Scull’s The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion [sic], 2 vols (London: HarperCollins, 2006).