One-volume Movie Tie-in Edition Hits One Million Mark
September 6, 2001 — Houghton Mifflin has gone back to press for the seventh time on the one-volume paperback movie tie-in edition of J.R.R.
Tolkien’s epic adventure, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, for a grand total of one million copies in print. The title is currently tracking at #23 on the New York Times extended adult paperback bestseller list.
New Line Cinema will release the first film in the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring on December 19th. Says Clay Harper, Director of Tolkien Projects at Houghton Mifflin, “Readers are responding to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings like never before. Not since Tolkien’s The Silmarillion was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1977 (also a million-copy bestseller) have we seen such a resurgence in this author’s wonderful work. Many, many people throughout the country have worked hard to encourage a new audience to join the adventures of Frodo Baggins and to invite them to take Tolkien’s inspiring journey through Middle-earth for the first time. I envy them the experience.”
The Lord of the Rings Movie Tie-in Edition
By J.R.R. Tolkien $20.00 trade paperback; also available in hardcover, $38.00
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Em sent us in an article from the “local paper” (no name was given), a nice little tribute to J.R.R’s legacy and literature the day after the 28th Anniversary of his death.
Hobbits still charming readers
By Mara D. Bellaby
Associated Press
LONDON – Before Harry Potter and wizards, there was Bilbo Baggins and Hobbits.
The hairy-footed, diminutive creatures charmed children and adults worldwide when British writer J.R.R Tolkien introduced them in his 1937 fantasy book “The Hobbit.”
Since then, “The Hobbit” has continually graced children’s recommended reading lists. Tolkien’s fantasy epic, “The Lord of the Rings,” was named the top novel of the 20th century in numerous surveys of British adults. And poet W.H. Auden once declared it “one of the best children’s stories of the century.”
Fan clubs have sprouted across Britain and the world, as die-hard Tolkienites seek each other out to converse in Elvish, read aloud parts of the novel and debate whether or not Balrogs have wings.
Now the first installment of the $273 million “The Lord of the Rings” film trilogy is due to hit theaters in December, not long after the first Harry Potter movie, putting Bilbo and Frodo in direct competition with the students of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And HarperCollins, Tolkien’s publisher in Britain, is releasing a new edition to tie-in with the film. Houghton Mifflin is doing the same in the United States.
If Tolkien’s enduring popularity in his home country is anything to go on, the elves, orcs and wizards the inhabit Tolkien’s Middle-earth should hold their own against Harry Potter.
Tolkien “is not ironic and modern and all-knowing, but he appeals to people,” said Ian Collier, a member of the British-based Tolkien Society, which welcomes fans from around the globe.
“It is a great story and like all great stories, it connects with people in some way,” said Collier, 35, who has read “The Lord of the Rings” 25 times.
Description of the trilogy
The trilogy describes the perilous journey by hobbit Frodo Baggins across Middle-earth to territory deep inside the control of Sauron, the Dark Lord. Baggins must reach the Cracks of Doom, a fiery chamber, and destroy a magical ring before Sauron can recapture it. If the ring falls into Sauron’s Hands, he will be able to dominate the world.
But it is the background scenery of the novel, rather than its plot, that seems to captivate most readers. Tolkien creates a new universe with its own fantasy creatures, language, genealogy, history, and geography. For many readers, Middle-earth becomes as vivid as the real world, though slightly more exciting.
“A lot of us lead fairly humdrum lives, so sitting on a commuter train and having something to read which takes you away from that is very attractive,” said Tolkien Society member Trevor Reynolds.
Plug Tolkien’s name into an Internet search engine, and hundreds of devoted Web sites appear. In Britain, the Tolkien Society boasts about 400 active, fee-paying members. Smaller clubs can be found in most British cities.
Britain’s Tolkien Society also has about 150 members in the United States, where smaller city or university-based fan clubs are equally as numerous. Tolkien groups sponsor Internet chats, meet to discuss their favorite author and attend Tolkien-related events across America.
Tolkien’s popularity also stretches far beyond English-speaking countries, “The Lord of the Rings” has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, and fan clubs exist everywhere from Germany to Russia to Japan.
But academics and other writers have been reluctant to embrace Tolkien, who died in 1973. fantasy writer Michael Moorcock once said, “The Lord of the Rings…. is Winnie the Pooh posing as an epic.”
Tolkien’s literary popularity has perhaps been hurt by his enormous popularity, said Thomas Shippey, a former Oxford University fellow and Tolkien expert who now teaches at St. Louis University in Missouri.
“There is a deep philosophical and literary snobbery, a strong class element,” Shippey said. “There is a literary bourgeois the believes it shall decide what is literature and what is not, and they get very annoyed when they aren’t followed.
“I wouldn’t say academics have been cautious; they have been violently hostile for nearly 50 years,” said Shippey, who write “J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century.”
Even at Oxford University, where Tolkien taught, the press office concedes that the closest then can come to a Tolkien expert is a specialist in 20th-century English literature.
Shippey said that one of the reasons may simply be professional hostility between English literature and English language professors, who often must compete for jobs in the same department. Tolkien was the latter.
Tolkien’s fans said they aren’t sure what the author would make of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy being filmed by New Zealand’s Peter Jackson. His family reportedly dreads it. Lawyers acting on behalf of the Tolkien Estate did not return repeated telephone calls from The Associated Press.
The Tolkien Society has taken a wait-and-see approach, but individual members, such as Reynolds, said they are excited. Reynolds said the he expects the movie will introduce a new generation to the tales of Middle-earth.
But as most Tolkien fans agree, getting people to read the books has never been much of a challenge, despite a lack of critical approval.
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The recently-mentioned Tolkien Ensemble has 3 concerts coming up soon in Rundetaarn in Copenhagen, home of quite a few Ringer fans. The programme will be both old \”hits\” and brand new songs to be released on the next CD “At Dawn in Rivendell.”
Concert-dates:
6 October, 8PM
11 October, 8PM
3 November, 8PM
Meanwhile, Adriana sent me an mpeg of Galadriel’s Song of Lorien featuring original music composed by Pavel Fomitchov as well as the lovely voice of mezzo-soprano Evgenia Zamchalova, both Russian. You can download this and other songs here I complained that I could do without the synthesiser backing, so she responded by sending me an mpeg of the lament , “Namarie” which she says “is sung by a Finnish group (perfect Elvish pronunciation). While the style is quiet, they make use of real instruments.”
This one wouldn’t play for me. I’ll let you know when I find out more about it.
Please don’t send me any more mpegs, folks, they tie up my computer for hours. Though thanks for the generous impulse!
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Hi everyone !
It seems that things become serious for THE LORD OF THE RINGS in France. Look what I find this morning These are 2 telecartes with the 2 LOTR teaser poster visuals on it (for information: in France you don’t use coins in phone booth, only this kind of card which in fact looks exactly like credit cards). I think it’s a first time in France that a movie is on a Telecarte (and 4 months before it’s release).
The retailer told me that these telecartes are released only for 2 month. They are limited and the one where Frodo is looking the Ring in his hand will be really hard to find because it was made in a smaller number. When you look behind the cards (sorry, no scan. I don’t have the time), there is a phone number for a big contest to win a trip to New Zealand (and visit the location sets it seems). The phone number is: 00 33 892 700 753 (that’s when you call from the USA, in France it’s 0 892 700 753). When you call this number, you can hear the French voices of Aragorn, Frodo etc…
I think it’s only the beginning here in France, I will send you other email if I find anything else!
Keep up the good work!
Kaplan
Today I went to the Virgin Megastore on the Champs Elysées avenue, in Paris. And there they were selling the Lord of the Rings poster (the pevious one, where Frodo holds the Ring) about 1m (3 feet) large and 1.60m (5 feet) long for 100 francs (that is about 15 bucks)
Second, I saw at a library that there was a French edition of Premiere a “Hors-Serie” that depicted the events of summer and winter. On page 106 was lotr, where there was a picture of the four hobbits, rolling and falling in a forest that appears (one of them is just a blur) to be the same one in which the Nazgûl leans over them on the trailer (So The Shire, I guess).
The main comment was: “PJ couldn’t take the whole books, so he had to make choices. The quality of the film will depend on those. The trailers and footage we’ve seen this far aren’t enough for us to see if the right choices were made, but they sure make us want to see more” (This is roughly translated from memory, I didn’t buy the magazine, didn’t have an money on me)
(Ringer Spy) Cuivienor
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From: DonQuijote
Having lived in Berlin as an exchange student for a year, I like to keep up with my favorite Bundesliga(national footba–er, soccer, league) team, Hertha BSC Berlin. Imagine my surprise when I discovered an article about the Greek defenseman Kostas Konstantinidis (today’s evidently his birthday) entitled “1379 Seiten Mittelerde (1379 Pages of Middle Earth)”
Berlin– Kostas Konstantinidis has made some plans for the near future. To be exact, 1379 pages. Not all at once; Kostas just doesn’t have enough time for that! No, Kostas advances slowly but surely. His plans are facilitated by the fact that his reading material is already divided. It all begins with the “Fellowship.” Then Kostas should be approached by “Two Towers,” and finally the “Return of the King.” Insiders know: Kostas Konstantinidis is reading Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.” We don’t know if the legends of the Hobbit-world are included in his hand-baggage. But we know Kostas’ current destination quite well: Finland…where he will play in the defense of the Greek national team…On September 6th (at the latest), Frodo, Gandalf, and Sauron will play the leading roles in his imagination once more…For his 29th birthday, coach Röber could give him a movie ticket. On the 20th of December, Kostas’s current reading material comes to the big screen.”
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At Mythcon earlier this month Quickbeam and I met the director of this new documentary on Tolkien and his legacy. He’s sent us an note to tell us how this interesting project is developing. Soon there should be something available to see via the Web. Here, in fact.
“As of August 24, 2001, Scripts and Scribes has completed filming for the segments that will hopefully appear on our web site (www.scriptsandscribes.com) and on www.theonering.net. We are completing the editing for these documentary exerpts. As well, we are in the process of securing the necessary permissions to put our project on line.
The next major moment in the production will take place Sept.7-9. First, we are thrilled that internationally respected Tolkien artist, Ted Nasmith has agreed to help us with our project. And we are extremely fortunate and honoured that Tom Shippey, Verlyn Flieger, Joseph Pearce, and George Clark will come to Toronto, Canada, to be interviewed for our documentary. Tom, Verlyn, and Joseph should be well known to Tolkien fans. George, a long time friend and colleague, is my co-editor for _J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth_ (Greenwood, 2000); see www.greenwood.com for a description of the book.
As well, we will do some intensive promotion of “The Legacy of _The Lord of the Rings_” during the Toronto International Film Festival, Sept. 6 -15/01
Lastly, we are prepared and booked to go to England for Sept. 21/01 to Sept. 23/01. We will be filming locations and interviews in London,Oxford, Birmingham, Sarehole, and the beautiful English architecture and landscape. We’ll visit all the key Tolkien landmarks: his house, college, pub (“The Bird and Baby”), and others. We’ll also attend Oxonmoot. All in all, it should be wonderful (and hectic!) trip.”
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