J.R.R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was an English philologist who specialized in an academic pursuit of Old English, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, and Scandinavian criss-crossings in language — and who conquered the world of popular culture by his creation of the high-fantasy epics of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He would be the first to agree that often the language created in his mind needed a people and their history to make the creation live, and he had the genius to become deeply interested in what happened to his language-speakers.
Tolkien was a veteran of trench warfare in WWI (reflected in his picture of Mordor). In less than six months he participated in many assaults and lost most of his close friends to the war. He was invalided out with trench fever, a wasting and potentially crippling consequence of the plague of lice in the works. He began a life in academia, eventually carving a distinguished career both for his teaching and his scholarship. His entire adult life, however, had an ever-present onging project with Middle-Earth and its peoples. He published The Hobbit in 1937 and finally finished tinkering with The Lord of the Rings after the war, publishing the three volumes in the early 1950s. The many volumes of his drafts and notes published posthumously by his son Christopher attest to his devotion to languages creating the world and fashioning its history.
It is easy to get lost with Tolkien, trying to track what he wrote when and how revising it affected his fantastic universe in a hundred different ways. It may be helpful when first reading him or even when going back to savor him once again to remember he wanted to find that pre-War England, to take journeys with friends, even if the journeys may be hazardous in a great and noble cause, and to return safely back to a comfortable shire.
The History of Middle-Earth 5-volume boxed set
The History of Middle-Earth 5-volume boxed set
The extraordinary history of Middle-earth comes to life in this essential five-volume collection from the beloved author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The History of Middle-earth chronicles the creation of the mythology, languages, and histories that form the foundation for Tolkien’s most beloved works—The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. With painstaking documentation and analysis, Christopher Tolkien guides readers through his father’s legendarium.
The Book of Lost Tales, Part One & Part Two collect the early myths and legends that led to the writing of Tolkien’s epic tale of war, The Silmarillion.
The Lays of Beleriand includes two of Middle-earth’s most crucial stories—that of Túrin Turambar, a hero living under a ruinous family curse, and Lúthien, an elven princess whose love for a mortal man is mirrored ages later in the romance of Arwen and Aragorn—and sheds light on the creation of Tolkien’s mythology.
The Shaping of Middle-earth traces the development of Middle-earth’s earliest lore, from the sundering of the world to Beleriand and the events of The Silmarillion.
The Lost Road and Other Writings chronicles the original destruction of Númenor and includes essays on the complex languages of Middle-earth along with an extensive account of Elvish vocabularies.