I’m quite excited about this. See also John Garth’s review in Times (behind a registration wall). I am also pleased by Alan Lee’s illustrations, but I would love in 10 or 20 years to see a new edition of these great pieces come out with other superb artwork. Looking up for the Fall of Gondolin!
The official Facebook page for J.R.R. Tolkien recently unveiled an exclusive Alan Lee artwork from The Fall of Gondolin and, suffice to say, it looks gorgeous. Not only that, it features quite possibly the coolest Vala in Arda.
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A Pilgrim in Narnia 
Thanks for this! How this year has flown – it felt to me like this was a long way off, yet!
Meanwhile, tangentially, someone just reminded me (with a link to a Tolkien Society post) that a complete audio recording of Paul Corfield Godfrey’s opera of The Fall of Gondolin will be released on 1 September “with the permission of the Tolkien Estate”. Some of his Tolkien music can be sampled on what I assume is his own YouTube account.
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It’s intriguing to me that this is coming out in August 2018 – the centenary of the month when the military campaign that essentially pushed the First World War to its political end occurred, and given that this story was apparently the origin of the Middle Earth legendarium that Tolkien conceived in the trenches and began writing in 1917. To me, given the way his evolved thinking then (inadvertently) engaged with the ‘baby boomer’ reaction to the World Wars period, it underscores the social impact of these developments on western society since – in which Tolkien’s work has become socially widespread, iconic, and, arguably, important for more than one generation.
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That’s an interesting link. Though perhaps accidental on this particular book release, Tolkien work has certainly energized in this 100 year anniversary of WWI. I have no doubt that he was formed by war, but responded differently than the war poets (and their death of Tennyson).
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I think the stylistically very different David Jones makes an interesting comparison: paying attention to heroism as well as horrors, and to spiritual and mythic depth, and the peculiarities of ‘technological warfare’ (if that’s a possible description).
Re. the latter, John Garth’s post “Tanks at Gondolin” (9 December 2016) is well worth (re)reading!
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Have you seen Tove Jansson’s artwork for The Hobbit?
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