Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

Check it out!!

"HarperCollins have announced that a new Tolkien publication,The Fall of Númenor, will be published on 10th November 2022. Edited by well-known Tolkien expert Brian Sibley, the book collects together J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings of the Second Age.
...
The book also comes with 11 colour images (10 and the cover), and dozens of pencil sketches by renowned Tolkien artist Alan Lee. Entirely new artwork that has been described as Lee’s “best work yet”.

I can't wait!!

Oooh, cool! I have pre-order it! I can't wait to read the new chronicles from the various published texts.

This autumn will also see new editions of The Silmarillion and The Complete Guide to Middle-earth

I just spotted another publication on Amazon— Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien

Thanks for the post, Moriel!

Nice! I will have to pre order this. It does sound like it’s all from existing material:

“Now, using ‘The Tale of Years’ in The Lord of the Rings as a starting point, Brian Sibley has assembled from the various published texts in a way that tells for the very first time in one volume the tale of the Second Age of Middle-earth, whose events would ultimately lead to the Third Age, and the War of the Ring, as told in The Lord of the Rings.”

Unlike NoME. But still very excited to read it put together “nice and proper” as a hobbit might say.

Honestly, I’d get this just for the fresh Alan Lee illustrations - he never disappoints.

I always enjoy Lee's depiction of dwarves. Look at that long beard!!

@Narv can you confirm if this is an accurate illustration of your good self sir

(In seriousness thank you @Eldy Dunami for sharing the pics - really hyped now to see the rest! I hope we get some in colour!)

A close look suggests that the above is likely a depiction of my distant cousin Narvi of Moria. The proud Moris lineage from which I am derived can be discerned by certain subtle identifying characteristics such as wider eyes, balder heads, thinner beards, opener mouths, more ribbon-like arms, and extremely baller pants - although since the above depiction does not show the pants, it is impossible to be certain.

All I'm gonna say is they damned well better have a live section about sacred bear dances, otherwise I will consider the whole the a waste of time and Brian Sibley to be a heretic of the highest order

Eldy Dunami wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 12:35 am
For my part, I'm looking forward to the new Alan Lee illustrations, and also curious to find out more about what exactly the book contains in terms of written content. Unfortunately, neither Amazon nor Google Books is offering a preview of it.

It appears to me to be a repackaging of already published materials. To put all the stuff Tolkien wrote on Numenor, from The Silm, UT, HoME, NoME and put it all in one place. Sort of create a 2nd Age timeline for Numenor compiled in one book so we don't have to go searching through 12 volumes of HoME. I think that sort of repackaging is nice just for convenience, but unfortunately it doesn't appear like there will be "new" Numenor stories. For instance, there won't be like what Children of Hurin did for the Fall of Gondolin.

The only "new" material is the Alan Lee sketches, and Brian Sibley's commentary, but that could be worth it just for those things.

Boromir88 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 1:43 amIt appears to me to be a repackaging of already published materials. To put all the stuff Tolkien wrote on Numenor, from The Silm, UT, HoME, NoME and put it all in one place.

That's my guess, too, but an Internet friend of mine (who used to post on the Plaza) thinks it might be something more in the model of the 1977 Silmarillion, and I'm curious in spite of myself, even though I think such an endeavor would almost certainly fail spectacularly. And is probably not what this book is, anyway.

This post from HarperCollins' official Tolkien Facebook page includes a number of photographs of the book, obviously intended to highlight the illustrations, which give us the closest thing we've seen to an excerpt thus far.

Adhering to the timeline of ‘The Tale of Years’ in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, editor Brian Sibley has assembled into one comprehensive volume a new chronicle of the Second Age of Middle-earth, told substantially in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien from the various published texts, with new illustrations in watercolour and pencil by the doyen of Tolkien art, Alan Lee.

This perhaps gives a clue as to what "adhering to the timeline of 'The Tale of Years' " looks like in practice: chapter headings seem to be taken from the entries in Appendix B. The smaller-font introductory text by Sibley is more reminiscent of The History of Middle-earth than Unfinished Tales (where Christopher's commentary rarely came at the start of chapters), much less the The Silmarillion, and the fact that he's quoting one of Tolkien's letters does not really suggest something in the model of Christopher's 1977 work.





On the other hand, the next two images show direct reproductions of text from the 1977 Silmarillion (from OTROP and the Akallabêth, respectively). That provides a more natural flow than quoting from the letters, but it's strange to me that Sibley refused to do even the minimal amount of rewriting necessary to avoid using square brackets, which are of course standard in scholarly writing (and seriousface Lore posts on message boards ) but are somewhat jarring in narrative fiction, IMO.

It'll be interesting to see more in a couple weeks!

I have my copy on order at my local independent bookshop and am lookin forward to it very much.

Interesting interview here - Tolkien Podcast: Exclusive interview with Brian Sibley {The Fall of Númenor}

I've just picked up my copy from my local bookshop so will come back t this page when I've read it. I heard Brian Sibley's presentation of the book at Oxonmoot in September, and have been looking forward to it.

I am well into the book now and enjoying it - once I have finished I'll do a review on Goodreads then post the review here as well.

Review of
The Fall of Númenor: and Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth
Edited by Brian Sibley and compiled from The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, volumes from The History of Middle-earth by Christopher Tolkien, and other sources.
HarperCollinsPublishers, 2022

I have very much enjoyed this book and believe it will have a valuable place in the wealth of Tolkien scholarship and readership with which we are now blessed.

This is what Tolkien wrote in c1951 to Milton Waldman (Letter 131):
I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.

After Tolkien’s death, other minds and hands gradually began to take up this invitation. First among them in time and in closeness to Tolkien was of course his son Christopher, whose work demonstrates that those minds and hands may also work upon that ‘majestic whole’ in written scholarship and story, with reverence and commitment.

The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth were the work of the man who best understood his father’s work and who laboured for forty-five years to open up that work to those who desired to know more. Yet he went beyond the huge task of editing the unfinished works and draft papers. It was Christopher Tolkien himself who first produced selective volumes designed to bring to readers – especially perhaps readers who might not find the twelve volumes approachable – the three ‘Great Tales’ in the closest possible form to free-standing stories, novelistic in some ways though blending prose and poetic versions of those tales: The Children of Húrin; Beren and Lúthien; The Fall of Gondolin.

Brian Sibley’s work should be seen in this context, for it too focuses on major themes in Tolkien’s legendarium: the Fall, Mortality, Immortality. This work presents the events of the Second Age sequentially as a discrete tale of supreme importance to Tolkien’s work.

Just as Carl Hostetter, in The Nature of Middle-earth (2021) allowed us some further scholarly insights related to The History of Middle-earth, Brian Sibley has added another narrative approach to the stories we so much love, and I thank him for that.

You'll enjoy it I'm sure, @Reikon Suchi-ru