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December 29, 2002

Tolkien Beowulf Manuscript Discovered


An English professor has found a previously undiscovered handwritten manuscript of Tolkien's translation of Beowulf:

"A US academic, Michael Drout, found the Tolkien material by accident in a box of papers at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

"An assistant professor of English at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, Dr Drout was researching Anglo- Saxon scholarship at the Bodleian, and asked to see a copy of a lecture on Beowulf given by Tolkien in 1936.

"It was brought to him in a reading room in a large box. Professor Drout, who reads Anglo-Saxon prose to his two-year-old daughter at bedtime, said: 'I was sitting there going through the transcripts when I saw these four bound volumes at the bottom of the box.

"'I started looking through, and realised I had found an entire book of material that had never seen the light of day. As I turned the page, there was Tolkien's fingerprint in a smudge of ink.'"

Publication date is set for some time this year. I guess I'll replace my old paperback edition with it, but I'll hold on to my other translation.

TheOneRing.net had the story, but I found the link and sent it on to them.

ObNeedlessDiary: I bought a copy of The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien over the holidays. Right now, I'm using it to answer all sorts of Lord of the Rings trivia, but I think I'll give it a full read-through once I've worked out from under the other stuff on my reading list.

Posted by mph at December 29, 2002 10:54 AM

Comments

The Tolkien's translation of Beowulf is great. Those who love Tolkien will love his translation as well.

Posted by: Tolkien at March 17, 2004 09:15 AM