Myths and Legends (Boxed Set) by J. R. R. Tolkien

Fifth in a series of hardcover boxed sets celebrating the literary achievement of Christopher Tolkien, featuring double-sided dustjackets. This slipcase contains Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, The Fall of Arthur, and Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl are two poems by an unknown author written in about 1400. Sir Gawain is a romance, a fairy-tale for adults, full of life and colour; Pearl is apparently an elegy on the death of a child but, like Gawain, it is also a sophisticated and moving debate on much less tangible matters. Sir Orfeo is a slighter romance, belonging to an earlier and different tradition. It was a special favourite of Tolkien's. The three translations are here uniquely accompanied with the complete text of Tolkien's acclaimed 1953 W.P. Ker Memorial Lecture that he delivered on Sir Gawain.

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun tells the epic story of the Norse hero, Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, during a time of gods, betrayal and fierce battles, the revenge of his wife, Gudrun, and the Fall of the Nibelungs. Told in verse composed by J.R.R. Tolkien derived from the ancient poetry of the Poetic Edda and the prose Voelsunga Saga, this masterful fusion of myth and poetry is accompanied by notes and commentary by Christopher Tolkien.

The Fall of Arthur tells the extraordinary story of the final days of England's legendary hero, King Arthur. It is the only venture by J.R.R. Tolkien into the legends of Arthur King of Britain, and may well be regarded as his finest and most skilful achievement in the use of the Old English alliterative metre. The long narrative poem is accompanied by significant if tantalising notes, in which can be discerned clear if mysterious associations of the Arthurian conclusion with The Silmarillion.

The translation of Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien was completed in 1926: he returned to it later but seems never to have considered its publication. This edition is twofold, for the translation is here paired with an illuminating written commentary on the poem by the translator himself, prepared for a series of lectures given at Oxford in the 1930s. From these lectures there arises a sense of the immediacy and clarity of his vision. It is as if Tolkien entered into the imagined past: standing beside Beowulf and his men shaking out their mail-shirts as they beached their ship on the coast of Denmark, listening to the rising anger of Beowulf at the taunting of Unferth, or looking up in amazement at Grendel's terrible hand set under the roof of Heorot.

These are accompanied by Sellic spell, a 'marvellous tale' written by Tolkien suggesting what might have been the form and style of an Old English folk-tale of Beowulf, in which there was no association with the 'historical legends' of the Northern kingdoms.

Published together for the first time, these four books - all edited by the author's son and literary executor - collect a fascinating period of Christopher Tolkien's forty-year career devoted to presenting his father J.R.R. Tolkien's scholarly writings on the myths and legends of northern Europe, a unique accomplishment that celebrates the academic brilliance and storytelling genius of one of the twentieth century's finest literary pioneers.

J.R.R. Tolkien was born on 3rd January 1892. After serving in the First World War, he became best known for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, selling 150 million copies in more than 80 languages worldwide. Awarded the CBE and an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Oxford University, he died in 1973 at the age of 81.

Christopher Tolkien, born on 24 November 1924, was the third son of J.R.R. Tolkien. As his father's literary executor, he devoted over forty years to the publication of his father's unpublished works, from The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales to Beren and Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin, and within 'The History of Middle-earth' series, and was awarded the Bodley Medal for his services to literature in 2016. He died in January 2020 at the age of 95.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:

'This magnificent Arthurian tale of love, sex, honour, social tact, personal integrity and folk-magic is one of the greatest and most approachable narrative poems in the language. Tolkien's version makes it come triumphantly alive, a moving and consoling elegy.'

Birmingham Post

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun:

"Will appeal strongly to readers already haunted by the deeper, more sombre musics of Middle-earth" The Times

"This is the most unexpected of Tolkien's many posthumous publications; his son's 'Commentary' is a model of informed accessibility; the poems stand comparison with their Eddic models, and there is little poetry in the world like those" Times Literary Supplement

The Fall of Arthur:

"The compact verse form is ideally suited to describing impact... elsewhere it achieves a stark beauty" Telegraph

Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary:

"If he had never written The Lord of the Rings he would have been famous in academic circles for writing one published lecture on Beowulf called The Monsters and the Critics. It turned things upside down. Beowulf was probably the medieval text that influenced him the most and the commentary and lectures are 'nuggets of gold'"

The Independent