Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy (Paperback)

by Douglas A. Anderson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
For those interested in J.R.R. Tolkien's sources comes Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy, edited by Douglas A. Anderson (The Annotated Hobbit), which collects 22 classic stories by such masters as George Macdonald, Andrew Lang, Lord Dunsany and James Branch Cabell. Arthur Machen aficionados will especially appreciate "The Coming of the Terror" (an abridgement of his short novel The Terror), hitherto unreprinted since its initial magazine appearance in 1917.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School--This anthology pulls together 21 short stories and one short play to explore the wide variety of influences on the writer who has long been regarded as the father of modern fantasy. Authors range from the iconic (L. Frank Baum) to the virtually unknown (Clemence Housman). Anderson includes commentary for each piece, highlighting possible connections with Tolkien's work. His comments are not scholarly or overly critical; instead they serve as effective introductions for a general audience at least somewhat familiar with Tolkien's fiction. Some of the associations are quite direct and compelling. John Buchan's "The Far Islands," for example, uses vivid descriptions of landscapes strikingly similar to that of Middle Earth. The book is arranged chronologically, and it's not surprising that the earliest pieces are the least gripping. Works like Ludwig Tieck's "The Elves" are little more than plotless retellings of fairy tales. But patient readers (or impatient ones willing to skip ahead) will find other selections that are well worth the time. Particularly memorable are stories by L. Frank Baum, H. Rider Haggard, and Arthur Machen, all of which are sure to keep fans of fantasy, new and old alike, reading.--Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; 1 edition (August 26, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345458559
• ISBN-13: 978-0345458551
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,197,804 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fairy Tales and Other Fantasies, September 5, 2003

By	Arthur W. Jordin (Smyrna, GA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Tales Before Tolkien is an anthology of fairy tales and other fantasy stories published prior to Tolkien's works. Some of these authors are known to have influenced Tolkien, but all wrote on themes which Tolkien would probably have admired. All the authors were chosen to be at least five years older than Tolkien.

"The Elves" by Ludwig Tieck is a "literary fairy tale" in the German tradition and illustrates the dangers of visiting with fairies. "The Golden Key" by George MacDonald is a mystical tale of a boy and a girl who embark on a lifelong quest. "Puss-Cat Mew" by E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen is a story of a young man and a cat against evil ogres and dwarves. "The Griffin and the Minor Canon" by Frank R. Stockton is a yarn about the friendship between a clergy man and a monster. "The Demon Pope" by Richard Garnett is a tongue in cheek story of Satan and the Sacred College.

"The Story of Sigurd" retold by Andrew Lang is an abbreviated version of the Nibelungenlied. "The Folk of the Mountain Door" by William Morris is a mystical tale of a god and goddess attending a naming rite in a Norse-like kingdom. "Black Heart and White Heart" by H. Rider Haggard is a story of an English gentleman who tries to steal the lover of a Zulu warrior. "The Dragon Tamers" by E. Nesbit describes the trials of a poor dragon who is always outwitted by one family. "The Far Islands" by John Buchan tells of a boy whose family is obsessed by the Western Isle. "The Drawn Arrow" by Clemence Housman is a story of the gratitude of kings. "The Enchanted Buffalo" by L. Frank Baum is a yarn about treachery and revenge in the Royal Tribe of buffalo. "Chu-bu and Sheemish" by Lord Dunsany is a fable about jealous gods. "The Baumhoff Explosive" by William Hope Hodgson is a cautionary tale about becoming too much like Christ.

"The Regent of the North" by Kenneth Morris is a tale about a Viking who will not forswear his religion for Christianity. "The Coming of the Terror" by Arthur Machen is a suspense story about frightening events in England during World War I. "The Elf Trap" by Francis Stevens relates the strange experiences of a Professor of Biology who meets a beautiful young lady in the back woods. "The Thin Queen of Elfhame" by James Branch Cabell is the story of a man who unintentionally finds true love. "The Woman of the Wood" by A. Merritt discloses the murderous actions of a man who loved a coppice. "Golithos the Ogre" by E. A. Wyke-Smith tells of the vegetarian ogre who has two plump children as house guests. "The Story of Alwina" by Austin Tappan Wright is an excerpt about the history of Queen Alwina of Islandia. "A Christmas Play" by David Lindsay recounts the efforts of the fairy Emerald to find husbands for three sisters when there are only two princes available.

These stories are representative of the fantastic short stories written prior to Tolkien. While several are fairy tales, others come from a wide variety of cultural myths. Many of the authors are well known today, but others are known only to the students of literature. In any case, these stories are worth reading just for the pleasure of it and, if such reading gives us any insight into Tolkien's works, so much the better.

Since these stories span a broad spectrum of treatments, I liked several more the others; some I didn't much like on first reading. Since each presents its own emphasis and mood, however, I suspect that my list would differ upon subsequent readings in other circumstances. Moreover, other readers will probably find themselves liking stories that I didn't much enjoy.

Highly recommended to Tolkien fans and anyone else who enjoys short works of fantasy.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great fantasy from the good old days, December 20, 2003

By	David Bratman (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Once upon a time, the fantasy field wasn't covered with identikit tract housing trilogies as it is today. Its tales were unique, idiosyncratic, homely dwellings. In the wake of Tolkien's rise to popularity in the 1960s, various enterprising editors, like local historians, have put together reprint collections of fantasy as-it-was.

"Tales Before Tolkien" has the special value for the Tolkien reader of putting the stories in a Tolkienian context. Some of them are stories he read himself; some handle themes he was later to make his own; some just illustrate the breadth of the field he worked in. All this is explained in succinct headnotes.

Anderson derives the high-fantasy tradition from Germanic kunstmaerchen (literary fairy-tales): Tieck, MacDonald, Buchan, Stevens, and Merritt are in that tradition: each portrays the longing for Faerie, often in ways strikingly reminiscent of Tolkien. Stockton and Nesbit have humorous tales of Faerie coming to us (as Tolkien did in his poem "The Dragon's Visit"); Knatchbull-Hugessen, Lindsay, and Wyke-Smith give original but traditional-style children's fairy tales; Lang and the two Morrises explore the cold northern realms in stark somber tales; Haggard, Housman and Baum take the epic fantasy principles to further-off lands; Hodgson and Machen apply the mysteires of fantasy to modern times (as does Buchan), as in Tolkien's "Sauron Defeated"; Wright tells a purely historical story of his imaginary realm of Islandia, as Tolkien wrote of Numenor; Cabell, Garnett, and Dunsany are snide and satirical about quests and religion - very unlike Tolkien, but he's known to have read and appreciated Dunsany's story.

As Tolkien is to today's fantasists - the giant in whose footsteps they tread - the writers in this book are to Tolkien: the ones who inspired and showed him the way. The formal prose, the elaborate frame stories, the treatment as wondrous of what modern fantasy readers may take for granted, the condensed quality of short fiction telling epic tales, may take a modern reader by surprise. But I urge you to read these stories with care and sympathy. These authors, more than many of Tolkien's followers, are saying the same things he is. To appreciate them is to understand what Tolkien wanted you to get out of his books.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars some tastey tidbits, September 11, 2003

By	Ted Carlson (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy (Hardcover)

This collection of tales has a couple of real gems ("The Elves" and "The Dragon Tamers") for people looking for sources of Tolkien's ideas, and a number of ones we've all read before ("The Story of Sigurd"). As a whole, I think the collection is a bit misleading because Anderson admits in his introduction that some of the tales don't really have any connection to Tolkien at all, they are just included to show you what was being written in the field of fantasy around the turn of the century. I would rather he excluded those and just concentrated on the ones that Tolkien either said he had read or that he very likely did read. That gripe aside, the book is very well designed and presented. I liked the brief "sidebar" that opens each tale, but would have preferred a bit more depth there.