If you'd like to read 'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil', a collection of poems written by J.R.R. Tolkien, I suggest you purchase the much more affordable The Tolkien Reader in paperback form for $7.99. Only the first two poems, 'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil' and 'Bombadil Goes Boating', feature Tom Bombadil.
The Adventures of Tom Bombadill is a book of poems. The poems are similar to what Tom sings in the LOTR books.
Wise old Bombadil, he was a wary fellow;
bright blue his jacket was, and his boots were yellow.
None ever caught old Tom in upland or in dingle,
walking the forest-paths, or by the Withywindle,
or out on the lily-pools in boat upon the water.
But one day Tom, he went and caught the River-
daughter,
in green gown, flowing hair, sitting in the rushes,
singing old water-songs to birds upon the bushes.
He caught her, held her fast! Water-rats went scuttering
reeds hissed, herons cried, and her heart was fluttering.
Said Tom Bombadil: 'Here's my pretty maiden!
You shall come home with me! The table is all laden:
yellow cream, honeycomb, white bread and butter;
roses at the window-sill and peeping round the shutter.
You shall come under Hill! Never mind your mother
in her deep weedy pool: there you'll find no lover!'
"Aurë Entuluva!" (Day shall come again!) - Húrin Thalion
Another book that contains the Tom Bombadil poems as well as some other good stuff is Tales from the Perilous Realm. Also much less expensive as I picked up the hardcover at a discount book store for about $10.
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Another book that contains the Tom Bombadil poems as well as some other good stuff is Tales from the Perilous Realm.
The Tolkien Reader has the illustrations by Pauline Baynes that appeared in the orignal The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Tales from the Perilous Realm is illustrated by Alan Lee, who was one of the conceptual artists for Peter Jackson's movies. Both are excellent publications.
I have heard of 'Tales of a perilous realm' but I have to ask... is it a book of poetry, or is it akin to the Silmarillion/Unfinished Tales.
It is a collection of poems and short stories. A few of the poems in 'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil' are related to Middle-earth, most of them are not. None of the short stories found in Tales from the Perilous Realm are related to Middle-earth.
Unfinished Tales is more akin to The History of Middle-earth than The Silmarillion. The tales in The Silmarillion are complete, if abbreviated. Unfinished Tales are just that, incomplete variations of the legends. Tolkien had intended that some of the material in UT be included in the appendices that follow The Return of the King, but he had not yet brought them to completed form.
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Re: The adventures of Tom Bombadil
Originally Posted by oldbadgerbrock
It is a collection of poems and short stories. A few of the poems in 'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil' are related to Middle-earth, most of them are not. None of the short stories found in Tales from the Perilous Realm are related to Middle-earth.
Unfinished Tales is more akin to The History of Middle-earth than The Silmarillion. The tales in The Silmarillion are complete, if abbreviated. Unfinished Tales are just that, incomplete variations of the legends. Tolkien had intended that some of the material in UT be included in the appendices that follow The Return of the King, but he had not yet brought them to completed form.
My comparison of the two was more influenced by his use of 'episodes' rather than narrative :-) UT was sometimes a pain in the #### to read... There were parts where I got confused with Galadriel and Celeborns story because of the many different variations
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Re: The adventures of Tom Bombadil
Originally Posted by Floin
I have heard of 'Tales of a perilous realm' but I have to ask... is it a book of poetry, or is it akin to the Silmarillion/Unfinished Tales.
It's akin to neither. It's basically just a short story collection, it has no connection to the Middle-earth canon. Apart from the short stories written by Tolkien it contains, it has the essay On Fairy Stories which is priceless. Tolkien's theories on fairy stories and fantasy literature are fascinating. The story Leaf by Niggle is also amazingly beautiful. I think the volume is well worth it.
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This book new costs $370.75. I am unable to afford this. So I wonder if anyone has read it? Is it good? Is it worth the money?
A little follow up to this...
If you are a bibliophile, and in particular a bibliophile who is keenly interested in Tom Bombadil, adding a 1962 edition of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is probably on your wish list. Most often this edition is exhorbitantly priced, as Lost_In_Middle_Earth discovered. While I likely will not ever possess a first or even second UK printing of this tome, I was able to find a 1978 US printing in very good condition on ebay for the reasonable sum of $40.
That really is a ludicrous price to pay for a book. I have a paper back version here (priced in old english money) of about £5, and later editions none of which are priced higher than £15. I'm sure if you look around you'll be able to find it for much less than that.
If you're a fan of Tolkien (rather than just his ME related work) I'd suggest "Farmer Giles of Ham" as a good read, also "Roverandom" and "The Smith of Wooton Major". They're certainly "children's stories" but they're good short reads if you feel like it. Tales from the Perilous Realm and Adventures of Tom are excellent as others have said.
I'm unsure if it's still in print (although I don't see why it wouldn't be) but "The Tolkien Reader" contains pretty much every poem, story and essay mentioned so far in this thread, it's invaluable if you like Tolkien's style, which I imagine we all do.
I's also recommend "The Tolkien Companion" for your collection, it's essentially a dictionary of sorts compiling almost every place, name and "foreign" word ever used by Tokien in his legendarium.
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Originally Posted by bambubambubambu
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