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TURGON'S BOOKSHELF:
The Best New Tolkien for Christmas

If you think you already know J. R. R. Tolkien’s Father Christmas Letters, then think again. The first edition, edited by Baillie Tolkien (the wife of Christopher Tolkien), was published in 1976. It contains a selection of letters, written by Tolkien under the guise of "Father Christmas", for his own children, over the years 1920 through the early 1940s. The letters themselves set up a marvelous quasi-mythology for Father Christmas, with his elves at the North Pole, and their battles with Goblins, and the thrilling exploits of the Polar Bear. (There is even a Goblin Alphabet!) The letters themselves tell various stories, year after year, frequently with some charming illustrations by Tolkien. So how could such a wonderful volume be bettered?

Easy: that is to publish all of the letters and all of the illustrations, including the various envelopes, which have designs and illustrations and mock stamps as well. And this is exactly what this new edition does. The book is now retitled Letters from Father Christmas (Houghton Mifflin, 0-618-00937-X, $20.00), a title which is confusingly similar to a Griffin and Sabine styled edition of a few years ago. But this new edition is the one to buy. The publisher has a phrase on the front cover which states that it "includes unpublished letters and drawings", but that doesn’t really do justice to the amount of new material contained in this new edition. The format is also improved, and I can’t resist scanning in a few pages from the new edition, showing some pages of letters reproduced photographically highlighting Father Christmas’s spidery handwriting, and the gorgeous color illustrations. This is the best new Tolkien book this Christmas, for readers of all ages.

Father Christmas Cover
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Father Christmas Page 74
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Father Christmas Page 31
xmas_page31.jpg 159k
Father Christmas Page 32
xmas_page32.jpg 137k
click for a larger image

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More Brief Takes on Recent Books
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Q&A with Douglas A. Anderson
09/15/03
An Updated Look at Fall 2003 Tolkien Publications
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Q&A with Jane Chance
07/15/03
TTT: The Film Books
06/15/03
Recent and Forthcoming Tolkien-Related Publications 2003
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Brief Take on Recent Books
02/01/03
Reading Tolkien beyond The Lord of the Rings
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Bilbo’s Last Song
10/01/02
Ted Nasmith’s Two Towers Calendars
10/01/02
A Roundup of Recent and Forthcoming Books by and about J. R. R. Tolkien: Spring and Fall 2002
08/01/02
Revisiting The Marvellous Land of Snergs
05/01/02
Report Card on Film One
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Fears II: The Sequel
11/01/01
'Just When You Thought It Was Safe . . .':
What I Fear Most about Peter Jackson's Films

10/01/01
Ted Nasmith’s 2002 Tolkien Calendar
09/01/01
New Tolkien Publications Roundup–Fall 2001
08/01/01
How to Express Your Tolkien Ignorance: A Guide for the Media
07/01/01
An Interview with Tom Shippey
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Responses to Critical Errancies
05/01/01
Critical Errancies
04/21/01
New Tolkien Publications, Spring 2001 and Beyond
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New Technology Comes to Tolkien
02/01/01
Tolkien as Artist and Illustrator
11/01/00
The 2001 Tolkien Calendar
10/02/00
Tolkienian Publications: Fall 2000 and Beyond
10/01/00
How Not to Study Tolkien
08/23/00
There and Back Again, with Gorbo the Snerg
07/01/00
Tolkien: Life and Letters
06/01/00
Literary Sacrilege
05/01/00
Publications 2000
03/01/00
Millennium Edition
01/11/00
The Best New Tolkien for Christmas
12/19/99
50th Anniversary of Farmer Giles
12/07/99
The Tolkien 2000 Calendar
11/15/99
Hobbitiana
10/24/99
Books - Fall 99
10/24/99
Roverandom
08/22/99
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