'Tales Before Tolkien' News! - Xoanon @ 14:10 PST

Doug Anderson writes: I recently got the finished cover for my book TALES BEFORE TOLKIEN: THE ROOTS OF MODERN FANTASY, due out in August from Ballantine Books.

It has a gorgeous John Howe cover, and I thought you might like to post it. The book is a collection of fantasies from the time before Tolkien, and it includes a number of rare stories that specifically inspired Tolkien-- like "The Story of Sigurd" from Andrew Lang's RED FAIRY BOOK, "Puss-cat Mew" by E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen, and "The Golden Key" by George MacDonald.

There are twenty-one stories in all, plus a never-before-published fairy play by David Lindsay, author of A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS, a novel much admired by Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Other authors in the book include: Ludwig Tieck, Frank R. Stockton, Richard Garnett, William Morris, H. Rider Haggard, E. Nesbit, John Buchan, Clemence Housman, L. Frank Baum, Lord Dunsany, William Hope Hodsgon, Kenneth Morris, Arthur Machen, Francis Stevens, James Branch Cabell, A. Merritt, E. A. Wyke-Smith, and Austin Tappan Wright.

The book will be published simultaneously in trade paperback at $14.95 0345458559 and in hardcover at $26.95 0345458540. The on-sale date I've been told is August 26th.