The Ancrene Riwle

From Tolkien Gateway
The Ancrene Riwle
The Ancrene Riwle.png
AuthorEdited and translated by M.B. Salu; Introduction and Appendix by Dom Gerard Sitwell; Preface by J.R.R. Tolkien
PublisherLondon: Burns & Oates
ReleasedNovember 1955
FormatHardback in dustwrapper
ISBNN/A

The Ancrene Riwle is a Modern English translation of the Middle English work Ancrene Riwle, by M.B. Salu.

J.R.R. Tolkien conributed with a Preface (page v), dated 29 June 1955. The two paragraph preface discusses the version of the Ancrene Riwle chosen for translation by Salu.[1] As described by Richard C. West (who quotes from the preface), Tolkien calls the "Middle English dialect of the original 'a natural, easy, and cultivated speech, familiar with the courtesy of letters, able to combine colloquial liveliness with a reverence for the already long tradition of English writing,' and thinks the translator has succeeded in representing this in modern terms."[2]

A paperback edition of the book was published by Burns & Oates in 1963 (reprinted in 1967), and another paperback edition by the University of Exeter Press in 1990 (ISBN 0859893413; reprinted in 2001).[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 An Illustrated Tolkien Bibliography, at Tolkienbooks.net
  2. Richard C. West (1970) Tolkien Criticism: An Annotated Checklist, p. 5