Tolkien's Lost Chaucer

John M. Bowers

Reveals the story of J. R. Tolkien's unpublished and previously unknown book hidden in the Oxford University Press archives
Explores Tolkien's annotated proofs and accompanying notes for the 'Clarendon Chaucer' edition that he abandoned in 1951 after almost 30 years of work
Draws upon a number of previously unpublished writings by Tolkien including unpublished letters and lectures
Shows Tolkien as a brilliant, insightful thinker about Chaucer's language and storytelling and shows the ways that his decades-long work on Chaucer inspired key episodes in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien's Lost Chaucer

John M. Bowers

Description

Tolkien's Lost Chaucer uncovers the story of an unpublished and previously unknown book by the author of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien worked between 1922 and 1928 on his Clarendon edition Selections from Chaucer's Poetry and Prose, and though never completed, its 160 pages of commentary reveals much of his thinking about language and storytelling when he was still at the threshold of his career as an epoch-making writer of fantasy literature. Drawing upon other new materials such as his edition of the Reeve's Tale and his Oxford lectures on the Pardoner's Tale, this book reveals Chaucer as a major influence upon Tolkien's literary imagination.

Tolkien's Lost Chaucer

John M. Bowers

1. Prologue: Concerning Chaucer
2. Unexpected Journeys
3. Four Chaucerians: Walter W. Skeat, Kenneth Sisam, George Gordon, and C.S. Lewis
4. Tolkien as Editor: Text and Glossary
5. The Chaucerian Incubus: The Notes
6. Tolkien as Chaucerian: The Reeve's Tale
7. Chaucer in Middle-Earth
Appendices
Works Cited

Tolkien's Lost Chaucer

John M. Bowers

Author Information

John M. Bowers, Professor of English, University of Nevada Las Vegas

John M. Bowers is an internationally known scholar of medieval English literature with books on Chaucer, Langland, and the Gawain Poet. Educated at Duke, Virginia, and Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar, he taught at Caltech and Princeton before settling at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. His work has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Great Courses released his lecture series The Western Literary Canon in Context.

Tolkien's Lost Chaucer

John M. Bowers

Reviews and Awards

"... Bowers recounts the history of the Clarendon Chaucer, beginning with the circumstances under which it was commissioned and running up to the moment of its rediscovery. This is a surprisingly gripping story - Bowers does an impressive job of immersing us in the ups and downs, starts and stops that attended this ill-fated project." -- The Times Literary Supplement

"Bowers's knowledge of Tolkien's works is as thorough and impressive as his extensive knowledge of Chaucer's poetry, and the result is that he is able to draw lines of comparison and suggest provocative influences that make one think a little differently about Chaucer as well as Tolkien. This is an elegantly written and accessible book that shines an informative light on a shadowy corner of Tolkien's scholarship and that will bring Chaucer, a poet Tolkien hugely admired, before a popular audience, perhaps for the first time. Ultimately, indeed, Bowers does as great a service to Chaucer as to Tolkien." -- Tim William Machan, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Volume 42, 2020

"The surviving material of the 'lost Chaucer' is fairly slight and in places very technical, but Bowers demonstrates neatly that even the most arcane philological detail could act as creative inspiration for Tolkien. It is refreshing that he discusses how this aborted edition displays Tolkien's weaknesses as a scholar ... as well as his superb literary skill ... The book also offers a fascinating, at times startling, insight into medieval studies in thefirst half of the 20th century ... The appetite for Tolkien's works, however fragmentary, seems to continue unabated. This book is a very welcome addition to the ever-growing library of his unfinished tales." -- History Today

"For anyone seriously interested in either Tolkien or Chaucer, Bowers' book will be indispensable. For others, it is a meticulous, elegant, and at times moving look into how one great author read another ... Bowers' book is insightful and enjoyable: a fitting testament to the two writers with whom it is concerned." -- Daniel Sutton, The Oxonian Review

"Bowers' book is full of such insights for the Tolkien aficionado. And if you're a Chaucer fan or scholar, youâll also find much to admire in Tolkien's detailed and sometimes illuminating work on the great poet." -- Oliver Tearle, Interesting Literature

"Having explored Middle Earth attentively and with deep appreciation, [Bowers] provides a welcome, fresh foray into both medieval and modern lore..." -- Spectrum Culture