The Great Tales Never End: Into the Archives

 

The Great Tales Never End: Essays in memory of Christopher Tolkien

Edited by Richard Ovenden & Catherine McIlwaine

“Over more than four decades, J. R. R. Tolkien’s son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien completed some twenty-four volumes of his father’s work, much more than his father had succeeded in publishing during his own lifetime. Thanks to Christopher’s extraordinary publishing efforts and scholarship, readers today can survey and understand the vast landscape of Tolkien’s legendarium.

“The book is illustrated with color reproductions of J. R. R. Tolkien’s manuscripts, maps, drawings, and letters, as well as photographs of Christopher Tolkien and extracts from his works. Many of these documents have never been seen before, making this volume essential reading for Tolkien scholars, readers, and fans.”  - Amazon

I really didn’t expect this book to come for another ten to twelve days, so its sudden appearance (it didn’t really turn up on Amazon tracking) was a very pleasant surprise. It is filled with essays by tried-and-true Tolkien scholars and family members, such as Catherine McIlwaine, Priscilla Tolkien (Tolkien’s only daughter just recently deceased this March), Verlyn Flieger, John Garth, Wayne G. Hammond, Christina Scull, Carl F. Hostetter, Tom Shippey, and Brian Sibley. There is a contribution by Baillie Tolkien (Christopher’s second wife) in the form of a translation of the eulogy delivered in French (the couple lived in France for a large part of their life) by Maxime H. Pascal at Christopher’s funeral. These are the kind of “influencers and super-fans” that I need to hear from right now, to reassure myself of the continuity and quality of the Middle-earth legacy.

I have not, of course, read much in it just yet. I suppose I shall probably start with Priscilla’s memoir first. I have to say it is a particularly beautiful book. In time, I expect to see a full biography of Christopher Tolkien produced; in the meantime, this volume of essays can be taken as an opening theme.

I must admit that in the latter half of the Seventies I did not know a great deal about Christopher Tolkien, only what gets mentioned in Carpenter’s 1977 biography of JRRT. I also concede that I was suspicious and even jealous of him: to be the son of the Professor seemed an unearned privilege. That he was to edit together The Silmarillion seemed a presumptuous task and possibly just a money grab. But the more I learned about his scholarly background, and as proof after proof of his zealous conservatorship of his father’s legacy was established, the more my cautious acceptance turned into enormous respect. His death filled me with profound dismay and sadness. What would happen now that Horatio did not hold the bridge?

By a strange coincidence, the arrival of this book coincides with the death of Elizabeth II, another end of an era, which, though long expected, brings with it consequences that cannot be foreseen. I am far from being a Royalist, but I am something of an Anglophile, and Tolkien has much to do with that. Something has gone out of the English Thing that was there all my life, and indeed before I was born. When old trees fall, the skyline changes. And lately the skyline has been changing with the fall of these monarchs.