Tolkien’s short story Farmer Giles of Ham was originally published in 1949 as a slim volume, illustrated by Pauline Baynes. Now fifty years later comes a new edition, with a number of interesting additions.

This anniversary edition (Houghton Mifflin, $17.00, ISBN 0-618-00936-1) is edited by the duo of Christina Scull and her husband Wayne G. Hammond, who are also the editors of Roverandom (1998) and, more interestingly, of the sumptuous J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator (1995). First of all it includes a facsimile edition of the 1949 edition of Farmer Giles of Ham, including all of the delightful mock-medieval illustrations by Pauline Baynes. Added to this is the previously unpublished first draft of the story by Tolkien, and his few pages of notes for a planned but never written sequel. And the editors have provided a scholarly introduction and notes at the end of the book to explain Tolkien’s erudition and humor. The new material is topped off with a contribution by Pauline Baynes, in the form of a map to "The Little Kingdom"–or the lands in which the story takes place.

I confess I love the story of Farmer Giles, and I was delighted to read it again in this expanded format. Some of the new material in this edition is fascinating–in particular I mean the notes to the unwritten sequel, and the editors’ introduction. The first draft of the story was a bit disappointing, as there aren’t really any significant differences between it and the version first published in 1949. The later version is more elaborate, with many new details added, but the core of the story is pretty much the same in both the early version and the later one. Pauline Baynes’ map is a nice addition, and a nice celebration of her own fifty years of association with the works of Professor Tolkien.

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All in all, this is a nice addition to the Tolkien archive, even if its novelties are few, and even though the presentation of the book itself is a bit careless (the paper is rather cheap, and the printing is very light on scattered pages throughout the volume). This will make a fine Christmas gift for many a Tolkien fan.

turgon@theonering.net