The Lost Road and Other Writings: Language and Legend Before 'The Lord of the Rings'

Tolkien, J. R. R.; Christopher Tolkien

ISBN 10: 0395455197 / ISBN 13: 9780395455197

Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1987

About this Item

22.5 x 14.5 cm. Octavo. 455pp. Black cloth in dust jacket. First American edition with full number line ending in 1. Original price of $18.95 present on front flap. Mild foredge foxing. Mild toning to dust jacket flaps. The History of Middle-Earth Volume V. Very Good in Near Fine dust jacket.

Seller Inventory # 86062

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Lost Road and Other Writings: Language and Legend Before 'The Lord of the Rings'
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston
• Publication Date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0395455197
• ISBN 13: 9780395455197
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First American edition.
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science Fiction & Fantasy

About this title

Synopsis

At the end of the 1937 J.R.R. Tolkien reluctantly set aside his now greatly elaborated work on the myths and heroic legends of Valinor and Middle-earth and began The Lord of the Rings. This fifth volume of The History of Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien, completes the presentation of the whole compass of his writing on those themes up to that time. Later forms of the Annuals of Valinor and the Annals of Berleriand had been composed, The Silmarillion was nearing completion in a greatly amplified version, and a new map had been made; the myth of the Music of the Ainur had become a separate work; and the legend of the Downfall of Numenor had already entered in a primitive form, introducing the cardinal ideas of the World Made Round and the Straight Path into the vanished West. Closely associated with this was the abandoned time-travel story, The Lost Road, which was to link the world of Numenor and Middle-earth with the legends of many other times and peoples. A long essay, The Lhammas, had been written on the ever more complex relations of the languages and dialects of Middle-earth; and an etymological dictionary had been undertaken, in which a great number of words and names in the Elvish languages were registered and their formation explained - thus providing by far the most extensive account of their vocabularies that has appeared.

Reviews

This is the fifth of six projected volumes on "The History of Middle-Earth." The complex revisions to Quenta Silmarillion , included here, give yet another insight into Tolkien's methods of reworking the rich ore of his linguistic knowledge and imagination, while the etymological dictionary of the Elvish languages reinforces his achievement in creating a self-contained world that yet penetrates our own. Still, only readers steeped in Tolkien's mythology will fully appreciate the discussion of The Lost Road 's relation to The Fall of Numenor. Riches for linguistic scholars and initiates, but casual readers will be much perplexed. Barbara J. Dunlap, City Coll. Lib., CUNY
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