The Battle of Maldon: together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth
The Battle of Maldon: together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth | |
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Author | J.R.R. Tolkien |
Editor | Peter Grybauskas |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Released | 30 March, 2023 |
Format | Hardcover; deluxe edition |
Pages | 208 |
ISBN | 0008465827 |
Preceded by | The Fall of Númenor (2022) |
The Battle of Maldon: together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth is a book of writings by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Peter Grybauskas. It was published on 30 March 2023 first in UK, then on 6 June in US.
The book presents for the first time Tolkien's own prose translation of "The Battle of Maldon", a 10-century Old English poem about a real world battle, together with the poem The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, an imaginary sequel to the Battle. Also included is a previously unpublished lecture "The Tradition of Versification in Old English", which deals with the nature of poetic tradition.
It includes a colour frontispiece reproducing a page from Tolkien’s original manuscript of The Homecoming. The deluxe edition also comes with a CD of J.R.R. Tolkien reading The Homecoming with his son Christopher. The recording was previously distributed on classic cassettes in 1992, which is now rare, but has been remastered on CD.
Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgement
- Introduction
- Part One: The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son
- (I) Beorhtnoth's Death
- (II) The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son
- (III) Ofermod
- Notes
- Part Two: The Battle of Maldon
- Introductory Note
- The Battle of Maldon, translated by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Notes
- Part Three: The Tradition of Versification in Old English
- Appendices
- I 'Old English Prosody'
- II 'The Tradition of Versification in Old English' [continued]
- III Alliteration on 'g' in The Battle of Maldon
- IV An Early Homecoming in Rhyme
- V Noteworthy Developments in the Drafts of The Homecoming
- VI Proofing the Pudding: The Homecoming in Dialogue with the Legendarium
From the publisher
First ever standalone edition of one of J.R.R. Tolkien's most important poetic dramas, that explores timely themes such as the nature of heroism and chivalry during war, and which features unpublished and never-before-seen texts and drafts.
In 991 AD, vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defence-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of tenth-century England, due to it being immortalised in the poem, The Battle of Maldon.
Written shortly after the battle, the poem now survives only as a 325-line fragment, but its value to today is incalculable, not just as an heroic tale but in vividly expressing the lost language of our ancestors and celebrating ideals of loyalty and friendship.
J.R.R. Tolkien considered The Battle of Maldon 'the last surviving fragment of ancient English heroic minstrelsy'. It would inspire him to compose, during the 1930s, his own dramatic verse-dialogue, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, which imagines the aftermath of the great battle when two of Beorhtnoth’s retainers come to retrieve their duke’s body.Leading Tolkien scholar, Peter Grybauskas, presents for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien's own prose translation of The Battle of Maldon together with the definitive treatment of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth and its accompanying essays; also included and never before published is Tolkien's bravura lecture, 'The Tradition of Versification in Old English', a wide-ranging essay on the nature of poetic tradition. Illuminated with insightful notes and commentary, he has produced a definitive critical edition of these works, and argues compellingly that, Beowulf excepted, The Battle of Maldon may well have been 'the Old English poem that most influenced Tolkien's fiction', most dramatically within the pages of The Lord of the Rings.
Publication history and gallery
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- HarperCollins hardcover (2023), pp. 208. ISBN 0008465827
- HarperCollins hardcover with slipcase (2023), ISBN 0008465835
See also
- The Battle of Maldon (a translation of the poem by E.V. Gordon, 1937)
External links
- Official product page at HarperCollins