Tolkien's Lost Chaucer
| Tolkien's Lost Chaucer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Author | John M. Bowers |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Released | 10 October 2019 |
| Format | Hardcover |
| Pages | 336 |
| ISBN | 978-0198842675 |
Tolkien's Lost Chaucer is a scholarly book by John M. Bowers, published in 2019 by the Oxford University Press. It explores J.R.R. Tolkien's unfinished and previously unknown work, known as the "Clarendon Chaucer".
The work was supposed to be an edition of Geoffrey Chaucer's poetry. Being the main editor, Tolkien worked on it for many years, but for various reasons it was ultimately left unfinished. What is left from this abandoned project are Tolkien's annotated proofs of its Text, a Glossary, and a 160-page Notes which he failed to compress.
The book quotes abundantly from these materials, showing Tolkien's thoughts about Chaucer's language and storytelling. It also quotes from Tolkien's 1934 essay "Chaucer as a Philologist" and 1939 "Reeve's Tale", as well as other unpublished lecture notes and letters, showing how Tolkien's work on Chaucer has inspired his later writings.
A follow-up volume, Tolkien on Chaucer, 1913-1959, is published in 2024.
Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviation
- Prologue: Concerning Chaucer
- Unexpected Journeys
- Four Chaucerians: Walter W. Skeat, Kenneth Sisam,
George S. Gordon, C. S. Lewis - Tolkien as Editor: Text and Glossary
- The Chaucerian Incubus: The Notes
- Tolkien as a Chaucerian: The Reeve's Tale
- Chaucer in Middle-earth
- Coda: Fathers and Sons
- Appendix I
- Appendix II
- Works Cited
- Index
From the publisher
Tolkien's Lost Chaucer uncovers the story of an unpublished and previously unknown book by the author of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien worked between 1922 and 1928 on his Clarendon edition Selections from Chaucer's Poetry and Prose, and though never completed, its 160 pages of commentary reveals much of his thinking about language and storytelling when he was still at the threshold of his career as an epoch-making writer of fantasy literature. Drawing upon other new materials such as his edition of the Reeve's Tale and his Oxford lectures on the Pardoner's Tale, this book reveals Chaucer as a major influence upon Tolkien's literary imagination.
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