Great Tales Never End, The: Essays in Memory of Christopher Tolkien Ovenden Richard (2022)

Over more than four decades, J.R.R. Tolkien’s son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkien, published some twenty-four volumes of his father’s work, much more than his father had succeeded in publishing during his own lifetime. Thanks to his son’s colossal publishing effort and extraordinary scholarship, readers today are able to survey and understand the vastness of Tolkien’s legendarium. This collection of essays by world-renowned scholars, together with family reminiscences, sheds new light on J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, Christopher’s unique gifts in communicating and interpreting it, and the debt owed to him by the many Tolkien scholars who were privileged to work with him. What was Tolkien’s intended ending for The Lord of the Rings, and did it leave echoes in the stripped-down version that was published? What was the audience’s response to the first adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, a radio dramatization now deleted forever from the BBC’s archives? What was the significance of the extraordinary array of doorways encountered by the hobbits as they journeyed through Middle-earth? The book is illustrated with colour reproductions of J.R.R. Tolkien’s manuscripts, maps, drawings and letters, as well as photographs of Christopher Tolkien and extracts from his works, some never seen before. With the kind permission of Tolkien’s estate, this volume offers essential reading for Tolkien scholars, readers and fans.