The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

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The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is a collection of poetry written by J. R. R. Tolkien and published in 1962. The book contains 16 poems, only two of which deal with Tom Bombadil, a character who is most famous for his encounter with Frodo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring (the first volume in Tolkien's best-selling The Lord of the Rings). The rest of the poems are an assortment of bestiary verse and fairy tale rhyme.

The book was originally illustrated by Pauline Baynes and later by Roger Garland.

The book, like the first edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, is presented as if it is an actual translation from the Red Book of Westmarch, and contains some background information on the world of Middle-earth which is not found elsewhere: e.g., the name of the tower at Dol Amroth and the names of the Seven Rivers of Gondor.

The book is also notable because it uses the letter "K" instead of "C" for the /k/ sound in Sindarin, a spelling variant Tolkien alternated many times in his writings.

There is some dispute about this book's 'canonical' status since the information presented about the secondary world is considered by some to exist only as folklore among the Hobbits. As the entire concept of 'canon' is hotly debated, it is not certain what significance, if any, the canon-status bears (See: Middle-earth canon). As a fictional work written by J.R.R. Tolkien that is about Middle-earth, it (by definition) has its place in the Middle-earth Cycle.

[edit] Contents

1. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
2. Bombadil Goes Boating
3. Errantry
4. Princess Mee
5. The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late
6. The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon
7. The Stone Troll
8. Perry-the-Winkle
9. The Mewlips
10. Oliphaunt
11. Fastitocalon
12. Cat
13. Shadow-bride
14. The Hoard
15. The Sea-bell
16. The Last Ship

J. R. R. Tolkien
Bibliography
Fiction: Songs for the Philologists (1936) • The Hobbit or There and Back Again (1937) • Leaf by Niggle (1945) • The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (1945) • Farmer Giles of Ham (1949) • The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (1953) • The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), The Two Towers (1954), The Return of the King (1955) • The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962) • The Road Goes Ever On (1967) • Tree and Leaf (1964) • The Tolkien Reader (1966) • Smith of Wootton Major (1967)
Posthumous publications : The Silmarillion (1977) • Unfinished Tales (1980) • Bilbo's Last Song (1990) • The History of Middle-earth (12 Volumes) (1983–1996) • Roverandom (1998) • The Children of Húrin (2007)
Academic Works : A Middle English Vocabulary (1922) • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1925) • Some Contributions to Middle-English Lexicography (1925) • The Devil's Coach Horses (1925) • Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad (1929) • The Name 'Nodens' (1932) • Sigelwara Land parts I and II, in Medium Aevum (1932-34) • Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale (1934) • Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics (1937) • The Reeve's Tale: version prepared for recitation at the 'summer diversions' (1939) • On Fairy-Stories (1939) • Sir Orfeo (1944) • Ofermod and Beorhtnoth's Death (1953) • Middle English "Losenger": Sketch of an etymological and semantic enquiry (1953) • Ancrene Wisse: The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle (1962) • English and Welsh (1963) • Introduction to Tree and Leaf (1964) • Contributions to the Jerusalem Bible (as translator and lexicographer) (1966) • Tolkien on Tolkien (autobiographical) (1966)
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