Tolkien Studies, Volume 1

In a collection of this quality, it would be difficult to single out even a few of the "best" essays. Just about all of them would be "best" essays in any collection, and to find them all here in one place makes the debut issue of "Tolkien Studies" indispensable. A few of my own particlar favorites from this issue are the contributions by Tom Shippey, Verlyn Flieger, Anne Petty, Michael Drout, and Mark Hooker. I also really enjoyed Thomas Honegger's and Dale Nelson's short source studies. And in a class all by itself, we have Carl Hostetter's presentation of Tolkien's own edition of the Middle English "Sir Orfeo", a text almost impossible to get hold of prior to its publication in Tolkien Studies. In my view, the volume is worth its cover price for this alone. But when you consider what else you're getting, the price becomes downright economical.

More excellent scholarship from all the "usual suspects." The only name I didn't know from the Contents list was Olga Markova, and although her piece was specialized from a Russian perspective, I still found it highly interesting. For the rest, required reading for any serious student of Tolkien. All the articles are well written and mostly free of the liberal arts academic jargon that in my humble opinion cripples so much of university-published literary studies today. I especially enjoyed "Tolkien's Prose Style" by Michael Drout, "Identifying England's Lonnrot," by Anne Petty, and "Do the Atlantis Story," by Verlyn Flieger.The volume is costly, but when you have it in your hands you will see why. It is beautifully printed and bound, and probably because is a university publication the press run isn't large, thus the expensive per-book price. Still and all, any serious student of Tolkien will want to own this work, and likely the others in the series that come afterwards.

This book is a collection of studies by several different authors on various aspects of Tolkien's work. It covers territory beyond The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. For full appreciation of this collection, a knowledge of The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers (found in Sauron's Defeat) from the History of Middle-earth series are necessary, at the very least. Familiarity with the terminology of grammar and linguistics is helpful. There are references to King Lear, Sir Orfeo, and the Finnish Kalevala. Non English quotations are well glossed. This book is for the serious student of Tolkien's writing style. In spite of its challenges, I found it fascinating and finished all except the Sir Orfeo chapter on the day that I received the book. The 4 star rating reflects the degree to which this is a specialist's book.