THE TOLKIEN FAN’S MEDIEVAL READER
by Turgon of TheOneRing.net
400 pages, $14.95
ISBN 1-59360-011-9
Published by Cold Spring Press
Publication date: March 25th
Brought together in one volume for the first time, The Tolkien Fan’s Medieval Reader presents many of the medieval texts that were important to Tolkien’s professional work and to his fiction. Selected and edited by TheOneRing.net’s own Turgon, who also wrote the introductions to each section, this is a unique resource that Tolkien fans will want on their bookshelf!
Prose versions of such marvel-filled works as Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson—three classics that every fantasy fan will enjoy on their own merits. Many will also appreciate seeing firsthand how these works, and others in this book—from Old English, Middle English, Old Norse, the Celtic languages and Finnish—served as inspiration for elements in Tolkien’s great imaginary world of Middle-earth: dragons, elves, dwarves, monsters, magical swords and heroes.
“These are texts that Tolkien knew intimately, that he lived with, studied, taught, edited, translated, and absorbed into his magination as a sponge absorbs water. . . .This book is a feast of medieval narrative from all over the Northern European and British worlds, cooked up by authors known and unknown out of the plentiful ingredients of myth and legend and folktale, and beautifully served for the pleasure and enlightenment of the contemporary reader.”
From the “Foreword” by Verlyn Flieger, author of Splintered Light: Language and Logos in Tolkien’s World and A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Road to Faërie.
