— Ch. 1 · Publication History And Editions —
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.
~4 min read · Ch. 1 of 5
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil first appeared as a stand-alone book in 1962. Some later editions, such as the Unwin Paperbacks edition from 1975 and the collection Poems and Stories, incorrectly state that it was published in 1961. J.R.R. Tolkien's own letters confirm that 1962 is the accurate year of release. Carpenter edited The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, which includes correspondence dated the 1st of August 1962 and the 28th of November 1962 to verify this timeline. Beginning with The Tolkien Reader in 1966, the poems were included in anthologies of his shorter works. This trend continued after his death with collections like Poems and Stories in 1980 and Tales from the Perilous Realm in 1997. In 2014 Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond edited a new stand-alone edition featuring detailed commentary for each poem. They also included original versions and their sources alongside the final texts. Only one poem, "Bombadil Goes Boating," was written specifically for this book.
Poetic Structure And Sources
W.H. Auden considered The Sea-Bell, subtitled Frodos Dreme, to be Tolkien's best poem. It is a piece of metrical and rhythmical complexity that recounts a journey to a strange land beyond the sea. The work draws on medieval dream vision poetry and Irish immram poems. The final note of the poem carries a tone of alienation and disillusion. Seven of the works appear on the 1967 album titled Poems and Songs of Middle Earth. Six of these tracks are read by Tolkien himself while the seventh, Errantry, is set to music by Donald Swann. The poem Fastitocalon originally appeared under the title Adventures in Unnatural History and Medieval Metres, being the Freaks of Fisiologus. The Sea-Bell was originally called Firiel before its publication in 1934. The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late expanded from Hey Diddle Diddle the Cat and the Fiddle. The Stone Troll mentions the Bay of Belfalas and the Merlock Mountains.