New Tolkien book...

Glyphweb.com is a valuable Tolkien resource, a near-complete Encyclopedia of Middle-earth (although I have looked some things up on there and not found them!), and sometimes they have news and updates. I found this out today. A new book is now ready in paperback; The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary by Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall and Edmund Weiner. For anyone interested in the linguistic side of ''Tolkien studies'' (such as myself), this book is a must-have. It is on offer at Amazon at £5.73.

Between 1919 and 1920, Tolkien was an assistant lexicographer for the then ''New English Dictionary.'' One of his supervisors, Dr Henry Bradley, was highly impressed with Tolkien's scholarship, then only a man in his late 20s. He said of him: ''His work gives evidence of an unusually thorough mastery of Anglo-Saxon and of the facts and principles of the comparative grammar of the Germanic languages. Indeed, I have no hesitation in saying that I have never known a man of his age who was in these respects his equal.''

The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary was interrupted by the First World War. By 1919, when Tolkien joined the staff, most of the work had been completed. And so, Tolkien was set to work on words of Anglo-Saxon and other Germanic derivation in the W section. To get a glimpse of the skill required for the etymological and philological rigours of this task, let us look at the word ''wasp.'' The entry under this word cites comparable forms in Old Saxon, Middle Dutch, Modern Dutch, Old High German, Middle Low German, Middle High German, Modern German, Old Teutonic, primitive pre-Teutonic, Lithuanian, Old Slavonic, Russian and, of course, Latin. It is hardly surprising that Tolkien himself wrote of this period: ''I learned more in those two years than in any other equal period of my life.''

As I say, well-worth the read by the looks of things (I have already ordered my copy!). Humphrey Carpenter is often woefully brief in descriptions of Tolkien's life, so this book, by three eminent lexicographers with access to the Oxford English Dictionary archives, promises to be truly edifying.