"PREFACE" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol03)

prominence in the long list of his works that might have been. The
new Lay is included in this book, and a page from a fine
manuscript of it is reproduced as frontispiece.
The sections of both poems are interleaved with commentaries
which are primarily concerned to trace the evolution of the
legends and the lands they are set in.
The two pages reproduced from the Lay of the Children of
Hurin (p. 15) are from the original manuscript of the first version,
' lines 297 -- 317 and 3 I 8 -- 33. For differences between the readings of
the manuscript and those of the printed text see pp. 4 -- 5. The page
from the Lay of Leithian in Elvish script (p. 299) comes from the
'A' version of the original Lay (see pp. 150 -- 1), and there are
certain differences in the text from the 'B' version which is that
printed. These pages from the original manuscripts are repro-
duced with the permission of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and I
thank the staff of the Department of Western Manuscripts at the
Bodleian for their assistance.
The two earlier volumes in this series (the first and second parts
of The Book of Lost Tales) are referred to as 'I' and 'II'. The fourth
volume will contain the 'Sketch of the Mythology' (1926), from
which the Silmarillion 'tradition' derived; the Quenta Noldorinwa
or History of the Noldoli (1930); the first map of the North-west
of Middle-earth; the Ambarkanta ('Shape of the World') by
Rumil, together with the only existing maps of the entire World;
the earliest Annals of Valinor and Annals of Beleriand, by
Pengolod the Wise of Gondolin; and the fragments of translations
of the Quenta and Annals from Elvish into Anglo-Saxon by
AElfwine of England.