Tolkien Studies 12: an announcement

On behalf of my co-editors, Michael D.C. Drout and Verlyn Flieger, and myself, I wish to announce Volume 12 of the journal Tolkien Studies. All the contents are now in the hands of our publisher, West Virginia University Press, and the volume is scheduled to be published both in physical copy and online on Project MUSE in August or September.

Several important new features or highlights about this issue:

• Starting this year, physical copies of Tolkien Studies will be in sturdy softcover rather than hardcover in boards. We regret the necessity for this change; not just cost but the difficulties attendant on the greater physical weight of the hardcover and the logistical challenges of producing it have led to this decision. In particular, the Press anticipates that overseas customers will have less trouble receiving their copies under a softcover regime. Customer price will be set by the Press later.
  
• This change has also provided the impetus and opportunity for a cover re-design. The new design will be striking and we hope you like it, and it's not entirely dissimilar from the old design.
  
• This year, we've acquired an entire phalanx of sturdy Dwarven scholars to compile "The Year's Work in Tolkien Studies," and we expect to continue this practice in the future.
  
• See under "Notes and Documents" for the ultra-rare Tolkien reprint I alluded to last year, and which this year is actually ready to appear.

And now, the contents. - David Bratman, co-editor Tolkien Studies 12 (2015)

• Kelley M. Wickham-Crowley, "'Mind to Mind': Tolkien's Faërian Drama and the Middle English Sir Orfeo"
  
• Kris Swank, "The Irish Otherworld Voyage of Roverandom"
  
• Simon Cook, "The Peace of Frodo: On the Origin of an English Mythology"
  
• Carrol Fry, "'Two Musics about the Throne of Ilúvatar': Gnostic and Manichaean Dualism in The Silmarillion"
  
• Alban Gautier, "From Dejection in Winter to Victory in Spring: Aragorn and Alfred, Parallel Episodes?"
  
• Sherrylyn Branchaw, "Boromir: Breaker of the Fellowship?"

**Notes and Documents

• J.R.R. Tolkien, "Henry Bradley, 3 Dec. 1845-23 May 1923," an obituary for his supervisor at the Oxford English Dictionary, with commentary by Tom Shippey and Peter Gilliver

**Book Reviews

• Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary together with Sellic Spell, by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, reviewed by Michael D.C. Drout
  
• The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book, by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, reviewed by Richard C. West
  
• A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Stuart D. Lee, reviewed by Jorge Luis Bueno-Alonso
  
• Tolkien: The Forest and the City, edited by Helen Conrad-O'Briain and Gerard Hynes, reviewed by Patrick Curry
  
• Tolkien, by Raymond Edwards, reviewed by David Bratman
  

**

• "The Year's Work in Tolkien Studies 2012," by Merlin DeTardo, Jason Fisher, David Bratman, Marjorie Burns, John Wm. Houghton, John Magoun
  
• "Bibliography (in English) for 2013," compiled by Rebecca Epstein and David Bratman