John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 201

WHEATON -- Day Five

DAY FIVEFriday, April 8th 2011
Today being my last day in the Wade, I first had to get my things together, get breakfast, and get checked out from the hotel in Lisle -- all of which I accomplished in more or less timely fashion (i.e., I wasn't v. late, for me).
Once in the Wade, I did a little more work with Warnie's diaries, going back and looking at his preparations for departure from Hong Kong in 1930. Didn't definitively find the answer I was looking for to the question that'd occurred to me last night, but found that my guess is the more probable of several options. After that, devoted myself to finishing up the Sayers WILKIE COLLINS book -- which was enjoyable enough: if no lost masterpiece, then certainly worth bringing back into print, which I hope some group such as the Sayers society, the Mythopoeic Press, or the Wade itself does at some point.
Also got to see Chris Mitchell briefly, who just swung by to say goodbye, and pay a brief visit to Rachel Mink (co-ordinator for VII) and Marj Mead (assistant director), talking about the piece I did for their forthcoming issue and how it came out and suggesting a follow-up piece; Marj was also able to answer a question about Wade history that confirmed my memory from years ago but added some crucial missing information I'd either forgotten or conflated. So that was both enjoyable and helpful. At lunchtime I took a detour on my way over to the union and took a quick turn through the college Library instead, to take that once-familiar long walk down the length of the building and up the stairs to where the Wade Center was when I first starting coming here, way back in 1983 (if having taken roughly two years after my arrival at Marquette to have been able to afford a trip as far away as Wheaton, what with my not having a car and not being able to afford a hotel room). Saw some flyers about the various Special Collections (not part of the Wade, but a parallel program of the college itself), about which more later.
After that, walked over to the union, where I had soup (two kinds) and tea (two cups) while looking over some of the Special Collections flyers I'd picked up. Then back for one last afternoon's session in the Wade, where after finishing up the Collins I spent the last hour or so of the day looking through some unpublished material, taking notes at a furious rate as the last minutes before closing time ticked by -- as is usual w. my visits to the Wade. All in all, when my research trip ended at four o'clock, I was quite pleased with my progress: one continuing project finished, a new side-project begun and ended, another continuing project progressing nicely, though still w. a long, long way to go, and a serendipitous discovery having led to some interesting if unedifying information I hadn't known before. Plus I'd gotten to see people I like, both in and out of the Wade, met a Tolkien scholar I hadn't known before, & had a pleasant stay in a town I like (always nice, after all the years I spent in college & grad school pursuing those three degrees back-to-back, to be back on a campus for a while).
A nice added bonus at the very end of the week was my getting to attend the organizational meeting of the new Wheaton College Tolkien Society, exactly the sort of group I'd have loved to have joined had such existed at any of the three colleges I attended. I counted fourteen people, which seems a good turn-out, and in Laura the archivist they have someone who shd be a great faculty supervisor. I'll certainly be following their future career w. considerable interest, as Bertie Wooster says, and look forward to joining in if any of their meetings co-incide w. any of my future visits to the Wade.
But all good things come to an end; after a half-hour, I had to leave the meeting to get going on the drive to Rockford so that I cd reach it before dark. To make a story short, the new route I tried worked wonderfully well: less scenic and interesting (and more expensive) than the one I tried the last two times, but much quicker too, so that I got to Rockford in just 1 hr 20 minutes. Nice. Rendez-vous'd with Janice* (YAY) and got to see not just my father-in-law but The Rockford Coulters (the senior generation of which, anyway) and Janice's brother's wife's nephew & his fiance: all people I like and enjoy spending time with.
And so, another research trip to Wheaton comes to a conclusion.
--JDR
*whose own flight had gone smoothly, other than a delay before departure and a hurry-up once in the air because, or so they were told, a human kidney (presumably for transplant) was on board and needed to be rushed to its destination. Haven't heard that reason for a shift in schedule before.

Wheaton -- Day Four

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WHEATON, DAY FOUR

Day Four: Thursday April 7th

Today went well; having one main project (the DARK TOWER transcription) behind me gave fresh impetus to the other projects I'd wanted to work on during this visit. Accordingly, I read through and made notes on Warnie's diary for 1930 describing his visits to San Francisco ("The first thing which struck me was that the sky scraper is a legitimate and attractive contribution to architecture"; "The gradients in this town are terrifying . . . and to go up one of them in a taxi sets you wondering what kind of brakes the car is fitted with.") and Los Angeles/Hollywood ("It was a glorious morning, like one of those rare, perfect English summer days, and with a clean bracing tang in the air: cleanliness by the way (and the alert fitness of the people) is the first thing that strikes one about Los Angeles: not only are the streets and trees and vehicles clean, but there is a cleanness which amounts to an austere beauty about these tall rectangular buildings: I like the sheer soaring sweep of them."); tomorrow I'll see if I can get through the New York City and Boston entries.

Today's big event was twofold: the arrival of Richard West, who came down for the day, devoting his time to continuing his work with the Lewis Papers (the ten-volume set of Lewis family history compiled by Warnie Lewis in the early 1930s), and the return of Chris Mitchell, the Wade's Director, who'd been away on a trip. The three of us had lunch together in downtown Wheaton (I had soup) and enjoyed much good Tolkien discussion (et al); I learned some interesting things about the various Wade collections and also some upcoming events and we discussed some upcoming projects. After another good afternoon session, during which I finished up the California leg of Warnie's trip, looked briefly at a very bad book AND its v. bad unpublished continuation, and got in a good spell on Sayers' WILKIE, Richard and I ate together in the student union (I had soup. I like soup.) and more good conversation, including recent political events in Madison, and about how various folks I know started WisCon back before I knew them, and of course about cats. Then walked back with him to where he was staying and visited some more while waiting for his taxi to arrive and take him to the airport. To my surprise, the 'taxi' that showed up was a long white stretch limousine -- I suppose it'd been in the area and picked up a ride for the way back to O'Hare.

After that, I stopped by the Naperville Road/Butterfield Road Borders again -- my last visit for this trip -- for another chai and the last online access of the day, then came back for my last night at the hotel, where I poured over maps and planned out tomorrow's route, making careful notes to prevent myself from getting lost, hopefully, as I did last year. Did some pre-packing to speed tomorrow morning's check-out, drank a lot of tea, and finished up the second Fr. Brown collection.

And now for tomorrow, and the last day's work in the Wade for this trip; hoping to make it count.

Birds seen today: the hotel-guarding geese (whether the hotel wanted guarding or not), some melodious blackbirds (wasn't able to tell whether they were grackles or not) stretching their wings in the early morning sun, a mourning dove (haven't seen one of those in quite a while), and one goldfinch who was more yellowy-bright than ours back in Washington, though they're getting there. Nice to know that the empty field surrounding this hotel in all directions helps support a little urban wildlife.

--John R.

P.S.: forgot to mention that this morning I compared my copy of the just-released English edition of Arne Zettersten's book to the Swedish original from two/three years ago, and confirmed that it corresponds closely, chapter-by-chapter, except that the English addition has a brief appendix not in the original summarizing the chapters, the entry for manuscript holdings in the Works Cited section is a little longer in the new version, and the original had color artwork not in mine: eight plates and two endpapers

Wheaton -- Day Three

WHEATON, DAY THREE (W. 4/6-11)

Day Three: Wednesday April 6th

I was a little late getting in today, having a chore to take care of before showing up at the Wade. It took longer than I expected, but finally wrapped up my work on THE DARK TOWER Ms and started in on Warnie's diaries, separated by a little time for the Collins in-between. I was particularly struck, going over the final chapters of DT, by how many clues Lewis gives us of events in the unwritten part of the novel. I know of two attempts to hypothesis how the story wd have come out, the first by Jared Lobdell and the second by Jonathan Himes, neither of which I found persuasive; I'm tempted to go all Edwin Drood on it myself, since it's a harmless game and emphasises what the evidence shows: that the book was much more carefully planned than is generally thought.

During two separate breaks I thumbed through a Chesterton (WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD) and a Cecil Chesterton (A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES): the first includes GKC's argument against women getting the vote, which is essentially that some women don't want the vote, so the only fair thing to do is not let any of them have the right. Which I consider a distinctly peculiar argument (and, I might point out, the exact opposite of GKC's argument against Prohibition). The second characterizes the outbreak of World War I thusly: "Mr Wilson had been in office but a little over a year when Prussia, using Austria as an instrument and Serbia as an excuse, forced an agressive war on the whole of Europe." [p.262] You'd never know from this passage that it was England who declared war on Germany and not the other way around.

The two highlights of the day were both meals. The first was having lunch with Wade archivist Laura and visiting researcher Kaja, during which we talked of Germany and Rwanda and Marquette and non-denominational churches and many other topics. During this meal I found out the fate of the Perry Mastadon by the simple expedient of asking: it's been moved to the new science building, where it no longer rotates but can be seen from all three floors. So there's that mystery solved.

The second was getting together for dinner with my friends the Baurs,* during which we talked about politics and yarn and Germany and Tolkien and World War II (from the point-of-view of someone who witnessed it first-hand, and only avoided being drafted to serve in it by a year) and nuns and current events; Dr. Baur paid me the complement, as he put it, of saying that I was even more cynical than he on one point (relating to one of our former Secretaries of State). We talked so long that eventually we noticed the staff unobtrusively closing up the restaurant around us, whereupon we departed.

Finally, it was time to head back to the hotel, which I managed pretty well despite driving in the dark. Not being able to read road signs after sunset is more of a bother than you might expect when I'm staying in unfamiliar territory -- which is why my driving under such conditions is more like card-counting than standard navigation: counting the number of streets between turns, scouting out routes during daytime so as to string together likely landmarks, and the like.

In-between leaving the Wade and meeting up with the Baurs I'd stopped off at the nearest Borders, which I'd spotted two nights before, and bought two maps (St. Louis and Missouri) to add to the collection for a future trip we're planning, as well as relaxing for a bit and enjoying a cup of chai.

--JDR.

current audiobook: THE MOONSTONE

current reading: WILKIE COLLINS (by Sayers), FINGAL (by 'Ossian'), THE TURN OF THE SCREW (by James), "The Eye of Apollo" (by GCK), LETTERS TO A DIMINISHED CHURCH (by DLS), WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD (by GKC)

--JDR

*the Western Springs Baurs, not the Kirkland Baurs

Postscript: I'm happy to report that once Sayers gets past her testy prologue and into the actual discussion "Creed or Chaos" improves quite a bit -- she's better at discussing dogma than in railing against people who don't prize it the way she does.

Wheaton -- Day Two

Day Two: Tuesday April 5th

Today I continued with work on THE DARK TOWER manuscript, getting near but not achieving the end. Tomorrow I shd be able to wrap up work on this and move on to the next project. I also got to meet the other researcher currently in the Wade, who's working on an interesting project involving Tolkien. Only did a bit on the Wilkie Collins, given the push to try to get through DT in time to still leave plenty of time for other things.

Speaking of Sayers, yesterday (4/4) I bought the first book of the trip, DLS's LETTERS TO A DIMINISHED CHURCH, in the Wheaton College Bookstore. Hadn't read much of Sayers' essays before, aside from her piece on Dante in EPCW, which I hadn't particularly cared for (though I apparently liked it more than CSL, who was dismissive of it in one of his letters, fortunately not to Sayers). However, Janice had spoken highly of a piece by Sayers she'd read a year or two back, so I wanted to give her another try. And what with all my recent Bible reading, this looked like a good place to start. I began with her essay "Creed or Chaos", which had caught my eye as I was skimming through it on the shelf. Have to say, I'm tempted to say that her defense of 'Creed' makes me think what she considers 'Chaos' is a much better option for Xiandom. She divides all Xians into three groups:

(1)"heathens, whose notions of Xianity are a dreadful jumble of rags and tags of Bible anecdotes and clotted mythological nonsense"

(2) "ignorant Xians, who combine a mild, gentle-Jesus sentimentality with vaguely humanistic ethics -- most of these are Arian heretics"

and

(3) "the more-or-less instructed churchgoers, who know all the arguments about [i.e., against] divorce and auricular confession and communion of two kinds," but are ill-equipped to defend dogma against "a Marxian atheist or a Wellsian agnostic"

--Of these, Sayers herself strongly identifies with the last group, but being well-able and more than willing to give battle on behalf of dogma. I wd probably fall into the second category, though I certainly wdn't describe myself in those terms, having realized I was an Arian the first time I came across the term (though it's only a 'heresy' if you recognize the authority that so labelled it, which I don't).

We'll see if she makes me change my mind about the importance she puts upon "authority" and "believ[ing] rightly" before I'm through.

I also made my usual trip to the Wheaton College Bkstr, which I try to do every time I'm in Wheaton (one or two visit I either didn't make it or found them closed for the day). It was interesting to peruse and compare their holdings of their Wade Center/Special Collections authors, who have a special section of the bookstore devoted to them.

As expected, they're exceptionally well-stocked w. C. S. Lewis -- ten shelves, with a wide variety of books both by and about.

By contrast, two shelves of JRRT held only three different titles: six copies of FR (paperback) a used copy of TT (trade paperback) and four copies of Fr Xmas -- a sad day when you can't even buy a complete set of LotR off the shelf.

Geo. MacD fared better w. three shelves; likewise GKC w. two and a half (the other half being given over Madeleine L'Engle), while DSL had to content herself w. only one. Which still left her better off than Ch. Wms, who had to share his single shelf w. Malcolm Muggeridge (!), or OB, who was represented by a single book on a shelf mostly devoted to Frederick Buechner -- but then that one book was the one I'd championed for years and eventually wrote the Preface for when it finally was published, EAGER SPRING.*

So seven Wade Center authors and three from Wheaton College's Special Collections, which though Wade-ish in its orientation is a distinct entity. In the old college library, before the Wade got its own building, the two used to be housed in the same wing on the same floor, so that a door opened into a shared anteroom/display area with the Wade Collection on the left and the Special Collections on the right (which led to A. N. Wilson's accidently conflating the two side-by-side collections into one in a passing reference in his CSL biography that got him a lot of grief).

More later

--JDR

...................

*I shd also mention that the Wade Center itself has some books for sale -- duplicate copies of books in the collection, ranging from recent releases to some rare items. And of course back-issues of their journal VII, and misc. items like postcards with Tolkien/Lewis/Sayers/&c photos or artwork on them.

Wheaton -- Day One

Wheaton, Day One

So, today (M.4/3) I started back in to working on THE DARK TOWER, picking up where I left off two visits ago, in Sept. 2009. I'd hoped to read the new essay about that work's composition by Jonathan Himes said to be in the new MYTHLORE, but my copy hadn't arrived before I left, nor has the Wade's yet come in. ((I'm also looking forward to the new volume of VII, to which I'm a contributor; shd be out soon.)) In any case, working closely w. the manuscript like this, I'm struck more than ever by how heavily influenced by David Lindsay's A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS the whole Stingerman concept is. I also think I've located the probable source for CSL's "Jerkies", but since it's a work I only know about second-hand I'll hold off on that one till I've had a chance to read the original for myself and do a comparison.

Also began reading Dorothy L. Sayer's Wilkie Collins in intervals when my eyes start to give out from too much staring at cross-outs in a photocopy of a rough draft Mss (DT) of a handwriting I don't usually work with (CSL's). I'd thought this was unpublished, but just before arriving learned that a small press limited edition had come out back in 1977. Not something I'd want to spend over a hundred dollars to read (the cheapest edition for sale online being $115; they go from there), but a nice break from the main business at hand.

Other reading, outside the research, includes two Fr. Brown books I brought with me for light reading, each with ten stories -- one of these I find I bought back in 1984 for 25 cents, probably at Spectrum, a seedy little bookstore I used to haunt nr the corner of 21st & Wells in Milwaukee; bought a lot of the Adult Fantasy Series books there (the owner, I discovered, had been a friend of Hannes Bok). Chesterton is one of those people I've tried to like but never been able to manage; having read the big Penguin collection of all the Fr. Brown stories years ago, thought I'd give them another try in smaller doses. Besides, wanted to join in a Wheaton College Book Discussion Group meeting at the Wade during lunchtime on Tuesday, if poss. -- though do have to say that given that their last book was Doyle's HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES and their next book is THE NINE TAILORS, I did not get the luck of the draw.

On the plus side, one of the stories I read was the only Fr. Brown story I'd liked last time I read them, wh. still stands out as far better than the rest this time through as well (I think it's called "The Sign of the Broken Sword"). Most, however, are v. bad indeed: an example of an idea (Fr. Brown himself) that's far better than the actual execution -- which indeed cd stand as a summary for pretty much the whole of Chesterton's career, unless there are some gems out there I've missed.

Other reading: finished Bk I of FINGAL, which I managed to get through by reading it aloud and ignoring all the footnotes. Also read a little Sayers (more on this later) and some of THE TURN OF THE SCREW, which I'm revisiting after many years, on the Kindle.

Finally, had an enjoyable evening talking Tolkien & colonial history (give or take, ranging from The French & Indian War thr. the Revolution to the War of 1812, w. some side glances to '1491' and Jamestown and the Bay Colony) w. Darrell Martin, who is exceptionally well-informed on both topics.

Though I do have one question I've yet to get an answer to:

WHERE'S THE PERRY MASTADON?

Wheaton College is famous for its mastadon skeleton, which has always been prominently mounted in a great bay window of the science building. No longer. Don't know if it's been taken down for refurbishing or simply moved elsewhere, but I v. much feel its absence every time I walk by that empty window.
--JDR

Wheaton -- Day Zero

So, yesterday I learned that an essay of mine (the piece I delivered at last year's Kalamazoo) has been accepted for a collection. Obviously, I'm v. pleased. More on this later.
And I shd take a moment to note that I've now been doing this blog for just over four years, during which time I've made about six hundred posts. So while still and always a work in progress, I'm glad I gave it a go. Thanks all the comments. Onward!
--JDRcurrent reading: THE ADVENTURES OF FATHER BROWN by GKC.

Well, That Was Alarming

So, Wednesday morning when Janice left for work she noticed that the posts blocking cars from using the fire exit to our complex next to our townhouse were down. Curious about this, she poked around a bit online once she had a break at work, and discovered that this was because of the police shooting near the main entrance earlier that morning, with the result that the west entrance was blocked off with crime-scene police tape, &c.
Shooting? Here?
Thanks to the link to the local news story she sent me, we were able to puzzle out a little more, but not much. To make the story short, late the night before (about ten pm), police responded to reports that someone heard shooting in the area. They arrived but weren't able to pinpoint where and what was going on. After a while they located a man with a rifle, who pointed it at them, so they shot him. He was rushed to HarborView (the Seattle hospital where all the really dire cases, flight-for-life stuff, go), where he was listed in critical condition. The two police are on administrative leave (standard procedure after a shooting), while the investigation of the incident has been turned over to the Renton Police, who apparently have a reciprocal agreement with the Kent Police to avoid conflicts of interest in people investigation their fellow officers.
And, three days, later, that's still about all we know, other than that the guy who got shot (variously reported as 61 or 63) is expected to live. We still don't know if he was a resident of Bayview like ourselves, or someone who wandered over from a neighboring complex, or simply passing through. I assume there'll be something in the local papers when he's eventually charged, but it's surprising how easy it is to find out what's going on in Libya (thanks to al-jazeera) and how hard it is to find out what just happened two blocks away at a spot I pass everyday.
--John R.


P.S.: And, as long as I'm covering very local events, I shd report that the creek beaver has taken down a smallish tree only a few paces from our front door, as I noticed yesterday morning. I suppose it makes sense, given that his terrain is long and narrow, that he'll be foraging up and down the creek for suitable trees to eat bark from and to expand or re-inforce his. Hope he sticks to the creek and avoids all the traffic on 64th street (a boulevard, two lanes each way) or the parking lots for the complexes and warehouses on the other side. Also hope he's able to survive and thrive without taking too many of the trees -- there are many, many little alder shoots but I'd hate for some of the taller and older trees, like the beeches or willows, to go, even in a good cause. I guess we'll see.
--John R.

The New Arrival: WHERE THE SHADOWS LIE

So, today the mail brought my copy of the latest novel with the Middle-earth-is-real meme, Michael Ridpath's WHERE THE SHADOWS LIE [2010]. Many thanks to friend Jessica, who sent it from the UK (the US edition not being due out for another few months) as part of our book exchange -- which back before the days of amazon.co.uk and bookfinder.com and abebooks.com was just about the only way to get books published in England but not over here (short of picking them up yrself when on a research trip). Unlike MIRKWOOD, which is a fantasy, or LOOKING FOR THE KING, which is set in the 1940s, this looks to be cast in the form of a detective story, a modern day mystery novel.
--I was about to say that I'd never read a novel set in Iceland before, when I remembered that just last month I was reading JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH, quite a bit of wh. describes overland journey in Iceland, with plenty of local color (from a Frenchman who never visited Iceland). And of course I've read a fair number of sagas set in Iceland, of wh. by far the most vivid was NJAL'S SAGA (also known as 'The Saga of Burnt Njal'*)
Oddly enough, just last Sunday our local fantasy reading group, Mithlond, watched a documentary set in Iceland rather than reading a book for his month: HULDERFOLK 102, which is all about the (still-current) belief in the Fair Folk in modern-day Iceland. Highly recommended, if only for the stunning scenery and the revelation of how few of the Icelanders (one of the most ethnically isolated populations in the world) looked stereotypically "Icelandic".
Anyway, I'm coincidentally primed to read a book set in Iceland, and in this century; looks like just the thing to take along for reading on the plane on my upcoming visit to Wheaton.
More later, once I've had a chance to read the thing.
--John R.

current reading: THE STRICKEN DEER (a life of Cowper) by Lord David Cecilcurrent audiobook: THE MOONSTONE by Wilkie Collins



*from this alternate title, you can tell it's not going to have a happy ending. But then you can also tell that before you even start to read it, because it's a saga: 'happy endings' is not what they do.

Sendak's HOBBIT

So, thanks to Janice, who got it from Wolf, here's the link to an interesting piece by artist extraordinaire Tony DiTerlizzi --who I remember back from his first major TSR project, the third edition MONSTER MANUAL (I being one of the four-man Monster Selection Committee for that book, along with Tim Beach and Jeff Grubb and, I think, David Wise); I prize the medusa he drew in my (now rather battered) copy when I asked him to sign it. Later he really made a name for himself doing the iconic art for PLANESCAPE (true confession time: the only thing I liked about that setting was the DiTerlizzi art, which was wonderful) -- the associated BLOOD WARS collectable card game (by Steven Schend) is almost a pocket-sized gallery of his 'greatest hits'.
And now DiTerlizzi, who's since made a name for himself with the Spiderwick Chronicles as well, has posted an essay about the failed project in the mid-1960s to have Maurice Sendak illustrate THE HOBBIT:
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/03/25/the-hobbit-illustrated-by-maurice-sendak-the-1960s-masterpiece-that-could-have-been/
Reading over this, I'm glad to see the one piece with Bilbo and Gandalf, which I rather like. It's nice to know that the copy of THE HOBBIT with Sendak's little thumbnail sketches in it survives and is now at the Beinecke; I hope these will be published someday. But I don't think it's a tragedy that this edition never took place. I like Tolkien's own illustrations better than those of any other artist I've seen tackle the job. Even when they're artists I like and the results are really impressive; Tolkien's art is part of the book for me in a way that even really good art by someone else can't be. And if we were going to get a talented children's illustrator of the era to do THE HOBBIT, I'd rather it have been Mercer Mayer than Sendak, whose work is too idiosyncratic for me.
But now that I've seen this, and the context, I find myself wanting to see DiTerlizzi's TUOR someday . . .
--JDR

POSTSCRIPT: Wayne Hammond, over on the MythSoc list, has posted a message with some more information on this collaboration-that-never-was, as recorded in publishers' records (as opposed to the word-of-mouth (Sendak > Maguire > DiTerlizzi) account:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/22008
--John R.
PPS: If you follow the link to DiTerlizzi's site, you might find it amusing to click on the second link to the right ("Thrones") near the picture of Peter Jackson with hobbit-pipe, which leads to a puff piece about THE GAME OF THRONES and how it's totally way better than Peter Jackson's LotR because it's got boobs and beheadings and stuff, and one of the characters likes to go to brothels. Oh, and one of the script writers finds that "[A]t this point in my life as a 40-year-old man, I am much more excited by [Martin]'s stories than I am by "Lord of the Rings". Which, I think, says it all.
As for me, I like Sean Bean, but not enough to watch ten to twenty hours out of The Book That Never Ends -- I'd want to try reading A GAME OF THRONES again first, and see if I cd get all the way through it this time.

A New (Re-)Publication

So, a few weeks ago I got a query about giving permission for a piece of mine to be reprinted -- specifically, my article "A Kind of Elvish Craft: Tolkien as Literary Craftsman" from Volume VI of TOLKIEN STUDIES. This is new territory for me, so I consulted with a few people before saying yes. With the results that this essay is now due to appear in TWENTIETH CENTURY LITERATURE CRITICISM towards the end of this year. For those who don't know this series (chances are there's a set down on the reference use-in-library-only shelves of your local university), here's the link to a description of it on the publisher's website:
http://www.gale.cengage.com/servlet/BrowseSeriesServlet?region=9&imprint=000&browseBy=series&titleCode=TCLC
I'll post a follow-up when it actually arrives; if anyone out there sees it before I do, I'd appreciate a head's up.
Woo-hoo.
--JDR