Myths and Legends

by J. R. R. Tolkien

ISBN: 9780008737757

Published: 2025-04-24

Fifth in a series of hardcover boxed sets celebrating the literary achievement of Christopher Tolkien, featuring double-sided dustjackets. This slipcase contains Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, The Fall of Arthur, and Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl are two poems by an unknown author written in about 1400. Sir Gawain is a romance, a fairy-tale for adults, full of life and colour; Pearl is apparently an elegy on the death of a child but, like Gawain, it is also a sophisticated and moving debate on much less tangible matters. Sir Orfeo is a slighter romance, belonging to an earlier and different tradition. It was a special favourite of Tolkien's. The three translations are here uniquely accompanied with the complete text of Tolkien's acclaimed 1953 W.P. Ker Memorial Lecture that he delivered on Sir Gawain. The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún tells the epic story of the Norse hero, Sigurd, the...