Images: The Tolkien Estate, 1937 and 2016


Feature J R R Tolkien


life and work of J R R Tolkien.” BLP will also publish Tolkien Treasures, a small-format illustrated paperback of exhibition highlights (it will retail at £12.99 in the UK, compared to the hardback’s £40). Fanous promises many surprises among the arte- facts, with the biggest “probably being Tolkien’s skill as an artist and designer. The Bodleian holds an amazing collection of artwork which covers the whole period of his life, from a childish drawing sent to cheer his mother in hospital, to intricate paterns and designs created later in life to illustrate the Second Age of Middle Earth.”


Middle earth girth The Tolkien empire is big business. Since BookScan UK records began in 1998, Tolkien’s titles have sold just over 6.7 million units for £61.8m, numbers which were, of course, aided by the Peter Jackson-directed Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. Meanwhile, just over 22.4 million units have been shiſted through BookScan US. HarperCollins UK—Tolkien’s British publisher— has boosted its earnings with some canny publishing around the films, including tie-ins and special editions. Five different versions of The Hobbit, for example, have earned more than £1m through BookScan, with almost half of the quintet’s revenue coming in the five years following the first Hobbit film’s release. Since Tolkien’s death in 1973, the estate—led by his son Christopher Tolkien—has mined the papers the author leſt behind, to extend the Middle Earth fran- chise. This was kicked off with The Silmarillion (1977), but has continued to the present day, including most recently The Children of Húrin (2013) and Beren and Lúthien (2017). Some critics have harrumphed over the recent books. A couple of years ago, Time magazine called Tolkien “the Tupac Shakur of literature”; the late rapper’s estate continued to release new music (of dubi- ous qualit) for some 20 years aſter his death. Yet there is no doubting that a market still exists for “new” Tolkien titles: The Children of Húrin has sold 135,000 hardback units for £1.8m since its release; Beren and Lúthien almost 25,000 copies since publication in June.


FIVE TITLES SINCE RECORDS BEGAN


TOLKIEN’S TOP


1


590,992 copies sold


2 An annotated map of


Middle Earth above, right is to be displayed, as


are artworks by Tolkien below, left


An unexpected journey As they are spin-offs from an exhibition, the BLP titles are different beasts to the recent Tolkien titles. But given that elsewhere in The Bookseller Daily we look at anniversary and archival publishing (see pp27–28), it is interesting to see how the author’s effects came into the Bodleian’s possession. Tolkien read English Language and Literature at Oxford and, barring a short stint at the Universit of Leeds, taught at his alma mater for his 40-year academic career. Yet it was not a given that he would give his papers to his universit library. In 1956, Tolk- ien was approached by William Ready, director of the Marquete Universit library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who offered £1,500 for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings manuscripts. Tolkien accepted—he was soon to retire and was worried about his finances—and even threw in his faux-medi- eval tale, Farmer Giles of Ham, and his chil- dren’s picture book, Mr Bliss, free of charge. Tolkien, incidentally, also sold his film


and merchandising rights to Universal Studios in 1969 for £10,000 (and a 7.5% future royalt) in order, Chris- topher Tolkien told the Times in 2002, to pay a tax bill. Universal later sold a bulk of the rights to a company now called Middle Earth Enterprises. That decision would have later repercussions as the Tolkien estate has twice sued Warner Bros, the producer of all the Jackson films through its subsidiary New Line Cinema, for what it said was non-payment of royalties. Aſter years of wrangling, both cases were eventually setled out of court. At any rate, the Bodleian received its first tranche of papers from the Tolkien Trust in 1979 and has received further deposits over the years. The collection— normally accessible only to scholars—currently runs to over 500 boxes of archival material and includes 330 volumes from his personal library, the gems of which will be featured at next year’s exhibition.


513,476 copies sold


3


433,411 copies sold


4


395,075 copies sold


5


279,891 copies sold


11th October 2017


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