Fifty years ago, on September 2, 1973, the British John Ronald Reuel Tolkien died, leaving behind the founding epic of fantasy (published in 1954-1955). A worldwide success that has become a hippie Bible and amplified in the 2000s by the films of Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings, which tells the story of the efforts of three little men, the “hobbits”, to prevent a magic ring from falling into the hands of evil forces, is only the tip of the iceberg. To celebrate the anniversary, its publishers are pulling out all the stops, with a very expensive edition (89 euros) of the Lord of the Ringsin a single volume, illustrated with the author’s drawings and augmented by an unpublished index of 2292 entries, the more affordable “collector” pocket reissue of the Hobbit and Silmarillionthat of the authorized biography, by Humphrey Carpenter, and the release of two volumes of the Book of Lost Talesfragments of theHistory of Middle Earth.
Christopher Tolkien, the exact opposite of Agatha Christie’s heirs
The latter two are co-signed by Christopher Tolkien, who became an organizer, propagator and continuation of his father’s work. Christopher Tolkien is the exact opposite of Agatha Christie’s heirs, who rely on their great-grandmother’s wishes to write new (and mediocre) Hercule Poirots or those of Roald Dahl, who agree to censor the work of their ancestor to better sell it to Netflix… Raised in the world of Middle-earth, “more real in my eyes than Babylon”, he will say, Christopher was, until his death , on January 16, 2020, a guardian of the temple, trying to preserve the integrity of the work. As a child, his father’s scribe, he took note of what he dictated. During the war, a Royal Air Force pilot based in South Africa, he received the chapters of the Lord of the Rings. When Tolkien died, he inherited his father’s archives.
An incredible mess. 70 boxes of unpublished pages, thousands of manuscripts, with drafts written on drafts, neither classified nor put away… This precious one is going to be more difficult to save than Frodo’s ring… Yet he dives in, and finds treasures of which he himself was unaware: a very complete version of the founding book, The Silmarillion, those, also very advanced, of other tales and legends. This renowned linguist then felt that he had found the meaning of his life: he left the University of Oxford and dedicated himself to his father’s work. “Over the years,” explains Martin Vagneur, editor at Christian Bourgois, “Christopher became part of Tolkien’s universe. He highlighted secondary texts, he became a co-signatory of The History of Middle Earth. The work is also his today.”
A step, not an end point
It is first of all the publication of Silmarillion in 1977, to which he already added a few passages of his own to make connections and eliminate inconsistencies. Having become a cartographer, he even developed a geography of Middle Earth. In 2007, he released The children of Hurin, a second big success. At the same time, he is working onHistory of Middle Earth, a work written by him from the notebooks and papers left by his father. This immense fresco has twelve volumes in English. Five have been published in French, including the two volumes of Book of Lost Tales, undertaken by JRR Tolkien in 1916-1917, left unfinished, and completed by Christopher. Today, JRR’s direct work is managed by the Tolkien Estate, and Christopher’s by his widow, Baillie.
This 50th anniversary is a milestone and by no means an end point. The sixth volume of Stories from Middle Earth is being translated and a complete of Tolkien’s vast correspondence is announced. Middle Earth has not yet unearthed all its secrets.
The Lord of the Rings, illustrated by JRR Tolkien, trans. from English by Daniel Lauzon. Christian Bourgois, 1384 p., €89.
The Hobbit, trans. from English by Daniel Lauzon. Paperback, 400 p., €9.90.
The Silmarillion, trans. from English by Daniel Lauzon. Paperback, 480 p., €11.
The Book of Lost Tales, trans. from English by Adam Tolkien, two volumes. Christian Bourgois, 384 p. and 496 p., €25 each.