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| The Old English Exodus | |
|---|---|
| Publication Information | |
| Author | J.R.R. Tolkien |
| Editor | Joan Turville-Petre |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Released | 28 January 1982 |
| Format | Hardcover |
| Pages | 95 (Original Edition) 140 (HarperCollins Expanded Edition) |
| ISBN | 0198111770 |
| Preceded by | The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981) |
| Followed by | The Book of Lost Tales: Part One (1983) |
The Old English Exodus is a book collecting J.R.R. Tolkien's text and prose translation of the Old English poem Exodus, accompanied by a commentary which was organized from a series of Tolkien's lecture notes from the 1930-40s. The published edition was edited by Joan Turville-Petre, a former pupil of Tolkien's.
Exodus does not refer to the second book of the Bible, but an Old English retelling in the form of an alliterative poem; it contains 590 lines. It re-tells the story of the Israelites' flight from Egyptian captivity and the Crossing of the Red Sea in the manner of a "heroic epic", similar in style to Beowulf.
The book was published in 1982 (though dated 1981),[1] with only 3000 copies printed.
New edition
After being out of print for more that 40 years, the book is receiving a new edition, this time published by HarperCollins, and to be released in May of 2026 as part of a boxed set of Tolkien's "Myths and Legends" (along with Finn and Hengest, The Story of Kullervo, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, and The Battle of Maldon). The book will not be sold separately[2]. It will include a preface by Thorlac Turville-Petre, the original editor's son.
Contents
- Editor's Preface
- Select Bibliography
- Text
- Translation
- Commentary
- Index to Commentary
From the editor
The Old English Exodus is based on full notes for a series of lectures delivered to a special class in Oxford in the 1930s and 1940s; the notes were retouched in the following decade. It was never intended to be an edition, although the lecturer scrupulously drew up and edited text as basis of his commentary. It is an interpretation of the poem, designed to reconstruct the original (as far as that is possible), and to place it in the context of Old English poetry.
References