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Gandalf’s salad days

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This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 2 days, 12 hours ago by limburger.

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February 28, 2026 at 12:43 am #1965754

Wolfie65
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In the introduction to The Well at the World’s End (1896) by William Morris, Lin Carter claims that it is the longest fantasy novel published prior to The Lord of the Rings – which may well be true, my Ballantine paperback copy has about 550 pages at 400-500 words per page. Roughly halfway through the book, we are introduced to a character by the name of Gandolf, the semi-tyrannical ruler of the city of Utterbol.

C.S. Lewis, a close friend of JRR Tolkien, was apparently quite obsessed with William Morris, so we can fairly safely assume that Tolkien also read this book.

Now we know what Gandalf did before he became a wizard in Middle Earth……

February 28, 2026 at 10:17 am #1965788

limburger
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Project Gutenberg for the win as the young folk would say:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/169

I guess this predates copyright laws by a sufficient margin that even Disney’s insane extension that allows exploitation past authors’ death means it is in the public domain.
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