TOLKIEN, J. R. R. - Simonne d'Ardenne.

£2,250 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

An edition of Þe Liflade ant te Passiun of Seinte Iuliene. First edition of this scholarly work to which Tolkien silently contributed. To fulfil the requirements for her doctorate at the Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, Liège, the book was published under d'Ardenne's name, but in private correspondence she recognized it as a collaboration with Tolkien, her doctoral supervisor.Simonne d'Ardenne (1899-1986) lived with the Tolkien family during 1933 while writing this work, and, in the acknowledgements, thanks Tolkien for his "assistance from the beginning of my work on this text, and especially during the revision of the glossary and grammar" (p. ix). In a letter dated 3 June 1936, the Canadian philologist E.V. Gordon also praised the text as an exceptional asset to the study of Middle English, noting Tolkien's contribution. Tolkien himself described it as "one of the most important works in the field of Middle English for a generation, and probably the best extant edition of a Middle English text" (Tolkien, ll. 20-22). "The Seinte Iuliene probably contains more of [Tolkien's] view on early Middle English than anything he will ever publish under his own name" (Scull & Hammond, p. 183). D'Ardenne achieved the top mark in the elite "concours universitaire" university entrance exams in 1929, and became professor of comparative grammar at the University of Liège in 1938. There she established a chair of medieval English literature and language in 1949.

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.