From Stephen Hubbard at bookreporter.com: Bilbo Baggins just wants to live his quiet, peaceful life in the Shire. And he’s doing a mighty fine job of it until the great wizard, Bladorthin, shows up at his door with a gaggle of dwarves. Their leader, Gandalf, tells of the vicious dragon, Pryftan, who overtook their home. Bilbo joins up with them for a grand adventure. Ultimately he saves the day and along the way happens to discover a magical ring. That is how the story originally took shape. With THE HISTORY OF THE HOBBIT, author John D. Rateliff pieces together fragments of history in order to present THE HOBBIT as it was originally drafted by J.R.R. Tolkien. With access to the documents at Marquette University, the project was originally undertaken by Taum Santoski, who passed away following a battle with cancer at an all-too-young age. The torch was then passed to Rateliff with the full blessing of Christopher Tolkien. ‘The History of The Hobbit’ Review
Category: Books Publications
Author Dirk Vander Ploeg has recently published ‘Quest for Middle-earth,’ a non-fiction look at earth before the time of Man, before the time of the flood, approximately 4000 BCE. The book ponders the question that Middle-earth may have really existed. Learn more about the book at Dirk’s website. [Click Here]
Kristin Thompson, author of ‘The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood’, writes: J. K. Rowling’s outing of Dumbledore is pretty OT for this site. Nevertheless, I’ve got a blog entry that tries to look past the controversy and examine her remarks on fanfiction and what they might mean for people in all fandoms, including Ringers, who write it and create fanart. Nothing definitive, but it seems like a little boost for the fair-use doctrine. The Outing of Dumbledore
Kristin Thompson, author of The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood, writes: On October 5 at 1:30 pm, I’ll be at the Intellectual Property bookstore in Austin for a brief presentation, Q&A, and signing. It’s located on the edge of the University of Texas campus at 24th and Guadalupe (Map).
Sometimes, I just love being me…This week Houghton Mifflin sent me a surprise package which to my delight contained ‘The History of the Hobbit’ part 1 and 2 by John Rateliff. Each volume is available now, while the 3 book set (which included The Hobbit) is available for pre-order on Amazon.com today. Be sure to pick up your copy today!!
Henry Gee, the author of The Science of Middle-earth (which began life here on Green Books) has taken over the editor’s chair at Mallorn, the Journal of the Tolkien Society. Mallorn is usually published annually and takes reviews, fiction, criticism and artwork of interest to Tolkien aficionadoes. But Henry wants to ramp up the journal’s visibility, with a new design, more frequent publication and a change of focus. “Tom Shippey wrote that Tolkien was the Author of the (20th) Century”, says Henry. “But that was then, and Mallorn will be there to chart Tolkien’s evolving influence into the 21st”. He can be reached at mallorn@tolkiensociety.org