The Fall of Arthur

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The Fall of Arthur
The Fall of Arthur.jpg
AuthorJ.R.R. Tolkien
EditorChristopher Tolkien
PublisherHarperCollins (UK)
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US)
Released23 May 2013
FormatHardback
Pages240[1]
ISBN978-0-00-748994-7

The Fall of Arthur is the title of an poem by J.R.R. Tolkien, concerned with the legend of King Arthur. It will be published 23 May 2013.[2]

According to Humphrey Carpenter, who published a few brief extracts from the poem in his biography about Tolkien, the poem "has alliteration but no rhyme [and] did not touch on the Grail but began an individual rendering of the Morte d'Arthur, in which the king and Gawain go to war in 'Saxon lands' but are summoned home by news of Mordred's treachery". "The Fall of Arthur" was read by E.V. Gordon and R.W. Chambers, who both approved of the poem.[3][4]

The writing of the poem was abandoned in the mid 1930s,[3] but in a 1955 letter to Houghton Mifflin, his American publishers, Tolkien mentioned that he hoped to finish the "long poem".[5] Although the state of the manuscript(s) is unknown, there is a rumour that the poem has 954 lines.[6]

Carl F. Hostetter mentions the transcription of a manuscript by Tolkien which seems to be a fragment of his The Fall of Arthur.[7]

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