Tolkien Gateway - User contributions [en]

J.R.R. Tolkien

2009-04-29T15:54:49Z

66.112.177.246:

j rr tolkien isn't a fool.Brennan evans did thi\ several themes that were reused in successive drafts of his legendarium. The two most prominent stories, the tales of Beren and Lúthien and that of [[Túrin]], were carried forward into long narrative poems (published in ''[[The Lays of Beleriand]]''). Tolkien wrote a brief summary of the mythology these poems were intended to represent, and that summary eventually evolved into ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series ''[[The History of Middle-earth]]''. From around 1936, he began to extend this framework to include the tale of ''The Fall of [[Númenor]]'', which was inspired by the legend of [[Atlantis]].

Tolkien was strongly influenced by Anglo-Saxon literature, Germanic and Norse mythologies, Finnish mythology, the Bible, and Greek mythology. The works most often cited as sources for Tolkien's stories include ''Beowulf'', the ''[[Kalevala]]'', the ''[[Poetic Edda]]'', the ''[[Volsunga saga]]'' and the ''[[Hervarar saga]]''1. Tolkien himself acknowledged Homer, Oedipus, and the Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas. His borrowings also came from numerous Middle English works and poems. A major philosophical influence on his writing is King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of ''Boethius''' ''Consolation of Philosophy'' known as the ''Lays of Boethius''. Characters in ''The Lord of the Rings'', such as Frodo, Treebeard and Elrond make noticeably Boethian remarks.

In addition to his [[Mythopoeia|mythological compositions]], Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as ''[[The Father Christmas Letters]]''). Other stories included ''[[Mr. Bliss]]'', ''[[Roverandom]]'', ''[[Smith of Wootton Major]]'', ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'' and ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]''. ''Roverandom'' and ''Smith of Wootton Major'', like ''The Hobbit'', borrowed ideas from his legendarium. ''Leaf by Niggle'' appears to be an autobiographical work, where a "very small man", Niggle, keeps painting leaves until in particular was designed from "phonæsthetic" considerations. It was intended as an "Elvenlatin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish and Greek (''Letters'', no. 144). A notable addition came in late 1945 with [[Adûnaic]], a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis myth, which by ''The Notion Club Papers'' ties directly into his ideas about inheritability of language, and via the "[[Second Age]]" and the [[Eärendil the Mariner|Eärendil]] myth was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's 20th-century "real primary world" with the mythical past of his Middle-earth.

Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages. In [[1930]] a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture ''[[A Secret Vice]]'', "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he concluded that "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c &c are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends" (''Letters'', no. 180).

The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's revival of the spellings ''dwarves'' and ''elvish'' (instead of ''dwarfs'' and ''elfish''), which had not been in use since the mid-1800s and earlier. Other terms he has coined, like legendarium and [[eucatastrophe]], are mainly used in connection with Tolkien's work.

== Works Inspired by Tolkien ==
In a 1951 letter to [[Milton Waldman]], Tolkien writes about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which:
{{quote|The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #131}}

The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were [[Pauline Baynes]] (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]]'' and ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'') and [[Donald Swann]] (who set the music to ''[[The Road Goes Ever On]]''). Queen [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margrethe_II_of_Denmark Margrethe II of Denmark] created illustrations to ''The Lord of the Rings'' in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity to the style of his own drawings.

But Tolkien was not fond of all the artistic representation of his works that were produced in his lifetime, and was sometimes harshly disapproving.

In 1946, he rejects suggestions for illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of the ''Hobbit'' as ''"too Disnified"'',
{{quote|Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #107}}

He was sceptical of the emerging [[Tolkien fandom|fandom]] in the United States, and in 1954 he returned proposals for the dust jackets of the American edition of ''The Lord of the Rings'':
{{quote|Thank you for sending me the projected 'blurbs', which I return. The Americans are not as a rule at all amenable to criticism or correction; but I think their effort is so poor that I feel constrained to make some effort to improve it.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #144}}

And in 1958, in an irritated reaction to a proposed movie adaptation of ''The Lord of the Rings'' by Morton Grady Zimmerman:
{{quote|I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #207}}

He went on to criticise the script scene by scene ("yet one more scene of screams and rather meaningless slashings"). But Tolkien was in principle open to the idea of a movie adaptation. He sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'' to United Artists in 1968, while, guided by scepticism towards future productions, he forbade Disney should ever be involved:
{{quote|It might be advisable [...] to let the Americans do what seems good to them — as long as it was possible [...] to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #13}}

United Artists never made a film, though at least [[John Boorman]] was planning a film in the early seventies. It would have been a live-action film, which apparently would have been much more to Tolkien's liking than an animated film. In 1976 the rights were sold to [[Tolkien Enterprises]], a [[Saul Zaentz]] company, and the first movie adaptation (an animated rotoscoping film) of ''[[Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings|The Lord of the Rings]]'' appeared only after Tolkien's death (in 1978, directed by [[Ralph Bakshi]]). The screenplay was written by the fantasy writer [[Peter S. Beagle]]. This first adaptation, however, only contained the first half of the story that is ''The Lord of the Rings''. In 1977 an animated TV production of ''[[Rankin/Bass' The Hobbit|The Hobbit]]'' was made by [[Rankin/Bass]], and in 1980 they produced an animated film titled ''[[Rankin/Bass' The Return of the King|The Return of the King]]'', which covered some of the portion of ''The Lord of the Rings'' that Bakshi was unable to complete. In 2001-3 ''[[Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings|The Lord of the Rings]]'' was filmed in full and as a live-action film as a ''trilogy of films'' by [[Peter Jackson]].

== Bibliography ==
''See also [[Books|Books by J.R.R. Tolkien]]''
=== Fiction and Poetry ===
* 1936 ''Songs for the Philologists'', with [[E.V. Gordon]] et al.
* 1937 ''[[The Hobbit|The Hobbit or There and Back Again]]'', ISBN 0-618-00221-9 ([[Houghton Mifflin|HM]]).
* 1945 ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'' (short story)
* 1945 ''[[The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun]]'', published in ''Welsh Review''
* 1949 ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'' (medieval fable)
* 1953 ''[[The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son]]'' published with the essay ''Ofermod''
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''
** 1954 ''[[The Fellowship of the Ring]]'': being the first part of ''The Lord of the Rings'', ISBN 0-618-00222-7 (HM).
** 1954 ''[[The Two Towers]]'': being the second part of ''The Lord of the Rings'', ISBN 0-618-00223-5 (HM).
** 1955 ''[[The Return of the King]]'': being the third part of ''The Lord of the Rings'', ISBN 0-618-00224-3 (HM).
* 1962 ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]] and Other Verses from the Red Book''
* 1967 ''[[The Road Goes Ever On (book)|The Road Goes Ever On]]'', with [[Donald Swann]]
* 1964 ''[[Tree and Leaf]]'' (''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' and ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'' in book form)
* 1966 ''The Tolkien Reader'' (''The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorthelm's Son'', ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'', ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'', ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]' and ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]]'')
* 1966 ''Tolkien on Tolkien'' (autobiographical)
* 1967 ''[[Smith of Wootton Major]]''

=== Academic Works ===
* 1922 ''A Middle English Vocabulary''
* 1924 ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]'' (with [[E.V. Gordon]])
* 1925 ''Some Contributions to Middle-English Lexicography''
* 1925 ''[[The Devil's Coach Horses]]''
* 1929 ''[[Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad]]''
* 1932 ''The Name 'Nodens' '' (in: ''Report on the Excavation of the Prehistoric, Roman, and Post-Roman Site in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire''.)
* 1932/1935 ''[[Sigelwara Land]]'' parts I and II
* 1934 ''[[The Reeve's Prologue and Tale|The Reeve's Tale]]'' (rediscovery of dialect humour, introducing the Hengwrt manuscript into textual criticism of Chaucer's ''The Canterbury Tales'')
* 1936 ''[[Beowulf: the monsters and the critics|Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics]]'' (lecture on [[Beowulf]] criticism)
* 1939 ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' (Tolkien's philosophy on fantasy, given as the 1939 Andrew Lang lecture)
* 1944 ''[[Sir Orfeo]]'' (an edition of the medieval poem)
* 1947 ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' (essay, very central for understanding Tolkien's views on fastasy)
* 1953 ''Ofermod'', published with the poem ''The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son''
* 1953 ''Middle English "Losenger"''
* 1962 ''[[Ancrene Wisse]]: The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle''
* 1963 ''English and Welsh''
* 1966 ''[[Jerusalem Bible]]'' (contributing translator and lexicographer)

=== Posthumous Publications ===
* 1975 Translations of ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]'', ''[[Pearl]]'' and ''[[Sir Orfeo]]''
* 1976 ''[[The Father Christmas Letters]]''
* 1977 ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' ISBN 0-618-12698-8 (HM).
* 1979 ''Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien''
* 1980 ''[[Unfinished Tales]] of Númenor and Middle-earth'' ISBN 0-618-15405-1 (HM).
* 1980 ''Poems and Stories'' (a compilation of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]]'', ''The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son'', ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'', ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'', ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'' and ''[[Smith of Wootton Major]]'')
* 1981 ''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'' (eds. [[Christopher Tolkien]] and [[Humphrey Carpenter]])
* 1981 ''The Old English Exodus Text''
* 1982 ''[[Finn and Hengest]]: The Fragment and the Episode''
* 1982 ''[[Mr. Bliss]]''
* 1983 ''[[The Monsters and the Critics]]'' (an essay collection)
** ''[[Beowulf: the monsters and the critics|Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics]]'' (1936)
** ''[[On Translating Beowulf]]'' (1940)
** ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' (1947)
** ''[[A Secret Vice]]'' (1930)
** ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]''
** ''[[English and Welsh]]'' (1955)
* 1983–1996 ''[[The History of Middle-earth]]'':<ol type="I"><li>''[[The Book of Lost Tales 1]]'' (1983)</li><li>''[[The Book of Lost Tales 2]]'' (1984)</li><li>''[[The Lays of Beleriand]]'' (1985)</li><li>''[[The Shaping of Middle-earth]]'' (1986)</li><li>''[[The Lost Road and Other Writings]]'' (1987)</li><li>''[[The Return of the Shadow]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 1) (1988)</li><li>''[[The Treason of Isengard]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 2) (1989)</li><li>''[[The War of the Ring]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 3) (1990)</li><li>''[[Sauron Defeated]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 4, including [[The Notion Club Papers]]) (1992)</li><li>''[[Morgoth's Ring]]'' (The Later Silmarillion vol. 1) (1993)</li><li>''[[The War of the Jewels]]'' (The Later Silmarillion vol. 2) (1994)</li><li>''[[The Peoples of Middle-earth]]'' (1996)</li></ol>
** ''Index'' (2002)
* 1995 ''[[J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator]]'' (a compilation of Tolkien's art)
* 1998 ''[[Roverandom]]''
* 2002 ''Beowulf and the Critics'' ed. Michael D.C. Drout ("Beowulf: the monsters and the critics" together with editions of two drafts of the longer essay from which it was condensed.
* 2007 ''[[The Children of Húrin]]'' ed. Christopher Tolkien

=== Audio Recordings ===
* 1967 ''Poems and Songs of Middle-Earth'', Caedmon TC 1231
* 1975 ''J.R.R. Tolkien Reads and Sings his ''The Hobbit'' & ''The Lord of the Rings'', Caedmon TC 1477, TC 1478 (based on an August, 1952 recording by George Sayer)

==Awards==
This list contains awards or recognitions given to J.R.R. Tolkien, it does not include awards given to his individual publications.
* D. Lit., in University College, Dublin (1954)
* Commander of Order of the British Empire (1972)
* Doctorate of Letters by Oxford University (1972)
* 6th "best postwar British writer" (The Times, 2008) [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3127837.ece]

==Other names==
J, John, Ronald, Tollers, JRsquared, Ruginwaldus Dwalakôneis, Arcastar, "Eisphorides Acribus Polyglotteus, orator Graecorum", N.N, Fisiologvs, Kingston Bagpuize, Oxymore, Raegnold Hraedmoding

== References ==
* ''Biography'': Carpenter, Humphrey (1977). ''J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography'', New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-04-928037-6
* ''Letters'': Carpenter, Humphrey and Tolkien, Christopher (eds.) (1981). ''The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien''. ISBN 0-618-05699-8
* ''HoME'': Tolkien, Christopher (ed.) (12 volumes, 1996-2002), ''The History of Middle-earth''

== Further Reading ==
A small selection of books about Tolkien and his works:
* Anderson, Douglas A., Michael D. C. Drout and Verlyn Flieger (eds.) (2004). ‘’Tolkien Studies’’, Vol 1
* Chance, Jane (ed.) (2003). ''Tolkien the Medievalist'', London, New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28944-0
* Chance, Jane (ed.) (2004). ''Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, a Reader'', Louisville: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-813-12301-1
* Flieger, Verlyn and Carl F. Hostetter (eds.) (2000). ''Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle Earth'', Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-30530-7. DDC 823.912. LC PR6039.
* O'Neill, Timothy R. (1979). ''The Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien and the Archetypes of Middle-earth'', Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-28208-X
* Pearce, Joseph (1998). ''Tolkien: Man and Myth'', London: HarperCollinsPublishers. ISBN 000-274018-4
* Shippey, T. A. (2000). ''J.R.R. Tolkien — Author of the Century'', Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-12764-X, ISBN 0-618-25759-4 (pbk)
* Strachey, Barbara (1981). ''Journeys of Frodo: an Atlas of The Lord of the Rings'', London, Boston: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-049-12016-6
* Tolkien, John & Priscilla (1992). ''The Tolkien Family Album'', London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-26-110239-7
* White, Michael (2003). ''Tolkien: A Biography'', New American Library. ISBN 0451212428
* ''The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends''. Humphrey Carpenter (1979), ISBN 0395276284
* ''The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends''. Colin Duriez and David Porter (2001), ISBN 1902694139
* ''Finding God in the Lord of the Rings'''. Kurt D. Bruner and Jim Ware (2003), ISBN 084238555X
* ''Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship''. Colin Duriez (2003), ISBN 1587680262

==Notes==
# As described by Christopher Tolkien in ''Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks Konung'' (Oxford University, Trinity College). B. Litt. thesis. 1953/4. [Year uncertain], ''The Battle of the Goths and the Huns'', in: Saga-Book (University College, London, for the Viking Society for Northern Research) 14, part 3 (1955-6). See [http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/bibl4.html publications by and about Christopher Tolkien]
{{inklings}}
[[Category:Tolkien Family|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[Category:Authors|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[Category:T.C.B.S.|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[Category:Inklings|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[category:linguists|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[de:J.R.R. Tolkien]]
[[fr:tolkien:bio]]
[[fi:J.R.R. Tolkien]]

J.R.R. Tolkien

2009-04-29T15:52:26Z

66.112.177.246:

j rr tolkien isn't a fool. several themes that were reused in successive drafts of his legendarium. The two most prominent stories, the tales of Beren and Lúthien and that of [[Túrin]], were carried forward into long narrative poems (published in ''[[The Lays of Beleriand]]''). Tolkien wrote a brief summary of the mythology these poems were intended to represent, and that summary eventually evolved into ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series ''[[The History of Middle-earth]]''. From around 1936, he began to extend this framework to include the tale of ''The Fall of [[Númenor]]'', which was inspired by the legend of [[Atlantis]].

Tolkien was strongly influenced by Anglo-Saxon literature, Germanic and Norse mythologies, Finnish mythology, the Bible, and Greek mythology. The works most often cited as sources for Tolkien's stories include ''Beowulf'', the ''[[Kalevala]]'', the ''[[Poetic Edda]]'', the ''[[Volsunga saga]]'' and the ''[[Hervarar saga]]''1. Tolkien himself acknowledged Homer, Oedipus, and the Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas. His borrowings also came from numerous Middle English works and poems. A major philosophical influence on his writing is King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of ''Boethius''' ''Consolation of Philosophy'' known as the ''Lays of Boethius''. Characters in ''The Lord of the Rings'', such as Frodo, Treebeard and Elrond make noticeably Boethian remarks.

In addition to his [[Mythopoeia|mythological compositions]], Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as ''[[The Father Christmas Letters]]''). Other stories included ''[[Mr. Bliss]]'', ''[[Roverandom]]'', ''[[Smith of Wootton Major]]'', ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'' and ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]''. ''Roverandom'' and ''Smith of Wootton Major'', like ''The Hobbit'', borrowed ideas from his legendarium. ''Leaf by Niggle'' appears to be an autobiographical work, where a "very small man", Niggle, keeps painting leaves until in particular was designed from "phonæsthetic" considerations. It was intended as an "Elvenlatin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish and Greek (''Letters'', no. 144). A notable addition came in late 1945 with [[Adûnaic]], a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis myth, which by ''The Notion Club Papers'' ties directly into his ideas about inheritability of language, and via the "[[Second Age]]" and the [[Eärendil the Mariner|Eärendil]] myth was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's 20th-century "real primary world" with the mythical past of his Middle-earth.

Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages. In [[1930]] a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture ''[[A Secret Vice]]'', "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he concluded that "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c &c are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends" (''Letters'', no. 180).

The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's revival of the spellings ''dwarves'' and ''elvish'' (instead of ''dwarfs'' and ''elfish''), which had not been in use since the mid-1800s and earlier. Other terms he has coined, like legendarium and [[eucatastrophe]], are mainly used in connection with Tolkien's work.

== Works Inspired by Tolkien ==
In a 1951 letter to [[Milton Waldman]], Tolkien writes about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which:
{{quote|The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #131}}

The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were [[Pauline Baynes]] (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]]'' and ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'') and [[Donald Swann]] (who set the music to ''[[The Road Goes Ever On]]''). Queen [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margrethe_II_of_Denmark Margrethe II of Denmark] created illustrations to ''The Lord of the Rings'' in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity to the style of his own drawings.

But Tolkien was not fond of all the artistic representation of his works that were produced in his lifetime, and was sometimes harshly disapproving.

In 1946, he rejects suggestions for illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of the ''Hobbit'' as ''"too Disnified"'',
{{quote|Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #107}}

He was sceptical of the emerging [[Tolkien fandom|fandom]] in the United States, and in 1954 he returned proposals for the dust jackets of the American edition of ''The Lord of the Rings'':
{{quote|Thank you for sending me the projected 'blurbs', which I return. The Americans are not as a rule at all amenable to criticism or correction; but I think their effort is so poor that I feel constrained to make some effort to improve it.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #144}}

And in 1958, in an irritated reaction to a proposed movie adaptation of ''The Lord of the Rings'' by Morton Grady Zimmerman:
{{quote|I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #207}}

He went on to criticise the script scene by scene ("yet one more scene of screams and rather meaningless slashings"). But Tolkien was in principle open to the idea of a movie adaptation. He sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'' to United Artists in 1968, while, guided by scepticism towards future productions, he forbade Disney should ever be involved:
{{quote|It might be advisable [...] to let the Americans do what seems good to them — as long as it was possible [...] to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #13}}

United Artists never made a film, though at least [[John Boorman]] was planning a film in the early seventies. It would have been a live-action film, which apparently would have been much more to Tolkien's liking than an animated film. In 1976 the rights were sold to [[Tolkien Enterprises]], a [[Saul Zaentz]] company, and the first movie adaptation (an animated rotoscoping film) of ''[[Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings|The Lord of the Rings]]'' appeared only after Tolkien's death (in 1978, directed by [[Ralph Bakshi]]). The screenplay was written by the fantasy writer [[Peter S. Beagle]]. This first adaptation, however, only contained the first half of the story that is ''The Lord of the Rings''. In 1977 an animated TV production of ''[[Rankin/Bass' The Hobbit|The Hobbit]]'' was made by [[Rankin/Bass]], and in 1980 they produced an animated film titled ''[[Rankin/Bass' The Return of the King|The Return of the King]]'', which covered some of the portion of ''The Lord of the Rings'' that Bakshi was unable to complete. In 2001-3 ''[[Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings|The Lord of the Rings]]'' was filmed in full and as a live-action film as a ''trilogy of films'' by [[Peter Jackson]].

== Bibliography ==
''See also [[Books|Books by J.R.R. Tolkien]]''
=== Fiction and Poetry ===
* 1936 ''Songs for the Philologists'', with [[E.V. Gordon]] et al.
* 1937 ''[[The Hobbit|The Hobbit or There and Back Again]]'', ISBN 0-618-00221-9 ([[Houghton Mifflin|HM]]).
* 1945 ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'' (short story)
* 1945 ''[[The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun]]'', published in ''Welsh Review''
* 1949 ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'' (medieval fable)
* 1953 ''[[The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son]]'' published with the essay ''Ofermod''
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''
** 1954 ''[[The Fellowship of the Ring]]'': being the first part of ''The Lord of the Rings'', ISBN 0-618-00222-7 (HM).
** 1954 ''[[The Two Towers]]'': being the second part of ''The Lord of the Rings'', ISBN 0-618-00223-5 (HM).
** 1955 ''[[The Return of the King]]'': being the third part of ''The Lord of the Rings'', ISBN 0-618-00224-3 (HM).
* 1962 ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]] and Other Verses from the Red Book''
* 1967 ''[[The Road Goes Ever On (book)|The Road Goes Ever On]]'', with [[Donald Swann]]
* 1964 ''[[Tree and Leaf]]'' (''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' and ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'' in book form)
* 1966 ''The Tolkien Reader'' (''The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorthelm's Son'', ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'', ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'', ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]' and ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]]'')
* 1966 ''Tolkien on Tolkien'' (autobiographical)
* 1967 ''[[Smith of Wootton Major]]''

=== Academic Works ===
* 1922 ''A Middle English Vocabulary''
* 1924 ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]'' (with [[E.V. Gordon]])
* 1925 ''Some Contributions to Middle-English Lexicography''
* 1925 ''[[The Devil's Coach Horses]]''
* 1929 ''[[Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad]]''
* 1932 ''The Name 'Nodens' '' (in: ''Report on the Excavation of the Prehistoric, Roman, and Post-Roman Site in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire''.)
* 1932/1935 ''[[Sigelwara Land]]'' parts I and II
* 1934 ''[[The Reeve's Prologue and Tale|The Reeve's Tale]]'' (rediscovery of dialect humour, introducing the Hengwrt manuscript into textual criticism of Chaucer's ''The Canterbury Tales'')
* 1936 ''[[Beowulf: the monsters and the critics|Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics]]'' (lecture on [[Beowulf]] criticism)
* 1939 ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' (Tolkien's philosophy on fantasy, given as the 1939 Andrew Lang lecture)
* 1944 ''[[Sir Orfeo]]'' (an edition of the medieval poem)
* 1947 ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' (essay, very central for understanding Tolkien's views on fastasy)
* 1953 ''Ofermod'', published with the poem ''The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son''
* 1953 ''Middle English "Losenger"''
* 1962 ''[[Ancrene Wisse]]: The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle''
* 1963 ''English and Welsh''
* 1966 ''[[Jerusalem Bible]]'' (contributing translator and lexicographer)

=== Posthumous Publications ===
* 1975 Translations of ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]'', ''[[Pearl]]'' and ''[[Sir Orfeo]]''
* 1976 ''[[The Father Christmas Letters]]''
* 1977 ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' ISBN 0-618-12698-8 (HM).
* 1979 ''Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien''
* 1980 ''[[Unfinished Tales]] of Númenor and Middle-earth'' ISBN 0-618-15405-1 (HM).
* 1980 ''Poems and Stories'' (a compilation of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]]'', ''The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son'', ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'', ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'', ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'' and ''[[Smith of Wootton Major]]'')
* 1981 ''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'' (eds. [[Christopher Tolkien]] and [[Humphrey Carpenter]])
* 1981 ''The Old English Exodus Text''
* 1982 ''[[Finn and Hengest]]: The Fragment and the Episode''
* 1982 ''[[Mr. Bliss]]''
* 1983 ''[[The Monsters and the Critics]]'' (an essay collection)
** ''[[Beowulf: the monsters and the critics|Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics]]'' (1936)
** ''[[On Translating Beowulf]]'' (1940)
** ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' (1947)
** ''[[A Secret Vice]]'' (1930)
** ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]''
** ''[[English and Welsh]]'' (1955)
* 1983–1996 ''[[The History of Middle-earth]]'':<ol type="I"><li>''[[The Book of Lost Tales 1]]'' (1983)</li><li>''[[The Book of Lost Tales 2]]'' (1984)</li><li>''[[The Lays of Beleriand]]'' (1985)</li><li>''[[The Shaping of Middle-earth]]'' (1986)</li><li>''[[The Lost Road and Other Writings]]'' (1987)</li><li>''[[The Return of the Shadow]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 1) (1988)</li><li>''[[The Treason of Isengard]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 2) (1989)</li><li>''[[The War of the Ring]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 3) (1990)</li><li>''[[Sauron Defeated]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 4, including [[The Notion Club Papers]]) (1992)</li><li>''[[Morgoth's Ring]]'' (The Later Silmarillion vol. 1) (1993)</li><li>''[[The War of the Jewels]]'' (The Later Silmarillion vol. 2) (1994)</li><li>''[[The Peoples of Middle-earth]]'' (1996)</li></ol>
** ''Index'' (2002)
* 1995 ''[[J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator]]'' (a compilation of Tolkien's art)
* 1998 ''[[Roverandom]]''
* 2002 ''Beowulf and the Critics'' ed. Michael D.C. Drout ("Beowulf: the monsters and the critics" together with editions of two drafts of the longer essay from which it was condensed.
* 2007 ''[[The Children of Húrin]]'' ed. Christopher Tolkien

=== Audio Recordings ===
* 1967 ''Poems and Songs of Middle-Earth'', Caedmon TC 1231
* 1975 ''J.R.R. Tolkien Reads and Sings his ''The Hobbit'' & ''The Lord of the Rings'', Caedmon TC 1477, TC 1478 (based on an August, 1952 recording by George Sayer)

==Awards==
This list contains awards or recognitions given to J.R.R. Tolkien, it does not include awards given to his individual publications.
* D. Lit., in University College, Dublin (1954)
* Commander of Order of the British Empire (1972)
* Doctorate of Letters by Oxford University (1972)
* 6th "best postwar British writer" (The Times, 2008) [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3127837.ece]

==Other names==
J, John, Ronald, Tollers, JRsquared, Ruginwaldus Dwalakôneis, Arcastar, "Eisphorides Acribus Polyglotteus, orator Graecorum", N.N, Fisiologvs, Kingston Bagpuize, Oxymore, Raegnold Hraedmoding

== References ==
* ''Biography'': Carpenter, Humphrey (1977). ''J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography'', New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-04-928037-6
* ''Letters'': Carpenter, Humphrey and Tolkien, Christopher (eds.) (1981). ''The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien''. ISBN 0-618-05699-8
* ''HoME'': Tolkien, Christopher (ed.) (12 volumes, 1996-2002), ''The History of Middle-earth''

== Further Reading ==
A small selection of books about Tolkien and his works:
* Anderson, Douglas A., Michael D. C. Drout and Verlyn Flieger (eds.) (2004). ‘’Tolkien Studies’’, Vol 1
* Chance, Jane (ed.) (2003). ''Tolkien the Medievalist'', London, New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28944-0
* Chance, Jane (ed.) (2004). ''Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, a Reader'', Louisville: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-813-12301-1
* Flieger, Verlyn and Carl F. Hostetter (eds.) (2000). ''Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle Earth'', Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-30530-7. DDC 823.912. LC PR6039.
* O'Neill, Timothy R. (1979). ''The Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien and the Archetypes of Middle-earth'', Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-28208-X
* Pearce, Joseph (1998). ''Tolkien: Man and Myth'', London: HarperCollinsPublishers. ISBN 000-274018-4
* Shippey, T. A. (2000). ''J.R.R. Tolkien — Author of the Century'', Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-12764-X, ISBN 0-618-25759-4 (pbk)
* Strachey, Barbara (1981). ''Journeys of Frodo: an Atlas of The Lord of the Rings'', London, Boston: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-049-12016-6
* Tolkien, John & Priscilla (1992). ''The Tolkien Family Album'', London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-26-110239-7
* White, Michael (2003). ''Tolkien: A Biography'', New American Library. ISBN 0451212428
* ''The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends''. Humphrey Carpenter (1979), ISBN 0395276284
* ''The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends''. Colin Duriez and David Porter (2001), ISBN 1902694139
* ''Finding God in the Lord of the Rings'''. Kurt D. Bruner and Jim Ware (2003), ISBN 084238555X
* ''Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship''. Colin Duriez (2003), ISBN 1587680262

==Notes==
# As described by Christopher Tolkien in ''Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks Konung'' (Oxford University, Trinity College). B. Litt. thesis. 1953/4. [Year uncertain], ''The Battle of the Goths and the Huns'', in: Saga-Book (University College, London, for the Viking Society for Northern Research) 14, part 3 (1955-6). See [http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/bibl4.html publications by and about Christopher Tolkien]
{{inklings}}
[[Category:Tolkien Family|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[Category:Authors|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[Category:T.C.B.S.|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[Category:Inklings|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[category:linguists|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[de:J.R.R. Tolkien]]
[[fr:tolkien:bio]]
[[fi:J.R.R. Tolkien]]

J.R.R. Tolkien

2009-04-29T15:48:23Z

66.112.177.246:

j rr tokien is a fool. several themes that were reused in successive drafts of his legendarium. The two most prominent stories, the tales of Beren and Lúthien and that of [[Túrin]], were carried forward into long narrative poems (published in ''[[The Lays of Beleriand]]''). Tolkien wrote a brief summary of the mythology these poems were intended to represent, and that summary eventually evolved into ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series ''[[The History of Middle-earth]]''. From around 1936, he began to extend this framework to include the tale of ''The Fall of [[Númenor]]'', which was inspired by the legend of [[Atlantis]].

Tolkien was strongly influenced by Anglo-Saxon literature, Germanic and Norse mythologies, Finnish mythology, the Bible, and Greek mythology. The works most often cited as sources for Tolkien's stories include ''Beowulf'', the ''[[Kalevala]]'', the ''[[Poetic Edda]]'', the ''[[Volsunga saga]]'' and the ''[[Hervarar saga]]''1. Tolkien himself acknowledged Homer, Oedipus, and the Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas. His borrowings also came from numerous Middle English works and poems. A major philosophical influence on his writing is King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of ''Boethius''' ''Consolation of Philosophy'' known as the ''Lays of Boethius''. Characters in ''The Lord of the Rings'', such as Frodo, Treebeard and Elrond make noticeably Boethian remarks.

In addition to his [[Mythopoeia|mythological compositions]], Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as ''[[The Father Christmas Letters]]''). Other stories included ''[[Mr. Bliss]]'', ''[[Roverandom]]'', ''[[Smith of Wootton Major]]'', ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'' and ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]''. ''Roverandom'' and ''Smith of Wootton Major'', like ''The Hobbit'', borrowed ideas from his legendarium. ''Leaf by Niggle'' appears to be an autobiographical work, where a "very small man", Niggle, keeps painting leaves until in particular was designed from "phonæsthetic" considerations. It was intended as an "Elvenlatin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish and Greek (''Letters'', no. 144). A notable addition came in late 1945 with [[Adûnaic]], a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis myth, which by ''The Notion Club Papers'' ties directly into his ideas about inheritability of language, and via the "[[Second Age]]" and the [[Eärendil the Mariner|Eärendil]] myth was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's 20th-century "real primary world" with the mythical past of his Middle-earth.

Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages. In [[1930]] a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture ''[[A Secret Vice]]'', "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he concluded that "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c &c are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends" (''Letters'', no. 180).

The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's revival of the spellings ''dwarves'' and ''elvish'' (instead of ''dwarfs'' and ''elfish''), which had not been in use since the mid-1800s and earlier. Other terms he has coined, like legendarium and [[eucatastrophe]], are mainly used in connection with Tolkien's work.

== Works Inspired by Tolkien ==
In a 1951 letter to [[Milton Waldman]], Tolkien writes about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which:
{{quote|The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #131}}

The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were [[Pauline Baynes]] (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]]'' and ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'') and [[Donald Swann]] (who set the music to ''[[The Road Goes Ever On]]''). Queen [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margrethe_II_of_Denmark Margrethe II of Denmark] created illustrations to ''The Lord of the Rings'' in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity to the style of his own drawings.

But Tolkien was not fond of all the artistic representation of his works that were produced in his lifetime, and was sometimes harshly disapproving.

In 1946, he rejects suggestions for illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of the ''Hobbit'' as ''"too Disnified"'',
{{quote|Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #107}}

He was sceptical of the emerging [[Tolkien fandom|fandom]] in the United States, and in 1954 he returned proposals for the dust jackets of the American edition of ''The Lord of the Rings'':
{{quote|Thank you for sending me the projected 'blurbs', which I return. The Americans are not as a rule at all amenable to criticism or correction; but I think their effort is so poor that I feel constrained to make some effort to improve it.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #144}}

And in 1958, in an irritated reaction to a proposed movie adaptation of ''The Lord of the Rings'' by Morton Grady Zimmerman:
{{quote|I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about.|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #207}}

He went on to criticise the script scene by scene ("yet one more scene of screams and rather meaningless slashings"). But Tolkien was in principle open to the idea of a movie adaptation. He sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'' to United Artists in 1968, while, guided by scepticism towards future productions, he forbade Disney should ever be involved:
{{quote|It might be advisable [...] to let the Americans do what seems good to them — as long as it was possible [...] to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).|''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'', #13}}

United Artists never made a film, though at least [[John Boorman]] was planning a film in the early seventies. It would have been a live-action film, which apparently would have been much more to Tolkien's liking than an animated film. In 1976 the rights were sold to [[Tolkien Enterprises]], a [[Saul Zaentz]] company, and the first movie adaptation (an animated rotoscoping film) of ''[[Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings|The Lord of the Rings]]'' appeared only after Tolkien's death (in 1978, directed by [[Ralph Bakshi]]). The screenplay was written by the fantasy writer [[Peter S. Beagle]]. This first adaptation, however, only contained the first half of the story that is ''The Lord of the Rings''. In 1977 an animated TV production of ''[[Rankin/Bass' The Hobbit|The Hobbit]]'' was made by [[Rankin/Bass]], and in 1980 they produced an animated film titled ''[[Rankin/Bass' The Return of the King|The Return of the King]]'', which covered some of the portion of ''The Lord of the Rings'' that Bakshi was unable to complete. In 2001-3 ''[[Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings|The Lord of the Rings]]'' was filmed in full and as a live-action film as a ''trilogy of films'' by [[Peter Jackson]].

== Bibliography ==
''See also [[Books|Books by J.R.R. Tolkien]]''
=== Fiction and Poetry ===
* 1936 ''Songs for the Philologists'', with [[E.V. Gordon]] et al.
* 1937 ''[[The Hobbit|The Hobbit or There and Back Again]]'', ISBN 0-618-00221-9 ([[Houghton Mifflin|HM]]).
* 1945 ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'' (short story)
* 1945 ''[[The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun]]'', published in ''Welsh Review''
* 1949 ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'' (medieval fable)
* 1953 ''[[The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son]]'' published with the essay ''Ofermod''
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''
** 1954 ''[[The Fellowship of the Ring]]'': being the first part of ''The Lord of the Rings'', ISBN 0-618-00222-7 (HM).
** 1954 ''[[The Two Towers]]'': being the second part of ''The Lord of the Rings'', ISBN 0-618-00223-5 (HM).
** 1955 ''[[The Return of the King]]'': being the third part of ''The Lord of the Rings'', ISBN 0-618-00224-3 (HM).
* 1962 ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]] and Other Verses from the Red Book''
* 1967 ''[[The Road Goes Ever On (book)|The Road Goes Ever On]]'', with [[Donald Swann]]
* 1964 ''[[Tree and Leaf]]'' (''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' and ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'' in book form)
* 1966 ''The Tolkien Reader'' (''The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorthelm's Son'', ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'', ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'', ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]' and ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]]'')
* 1966 ''Tolkien on Tolkien'' (autobiographical)
* 1967 ''[[Smith of Wootton Major]]''

=== Academic Works ===
* 1922 ''A Middle English Vocabulary''
* 1924 ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]'' (with [[E.V. Gordon]])
* 1925 ''Some Contributions to Middle-English Lexicography''
* 1925 ''[[The Devil's Coach Horses]]''
* 1929 ''[[Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad]]''
* 1932 ''The Name 'Nodens' '' (in: ''Report on the Excavation of the Prehistoric, Roman, and Post-Roman Site in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire''.)
* 1932/1935 ''[[Sigelwara Land]]'' parts I and II
* 1934 ''[[The Reeve's Prologue and Tale|The Reeve's Tale]]'' (rediscovery of dialect humour, introducing the Hengwrt manuscript into textual criticism of Chaucer's ''The Canterbury Tales'')
* 1936 ''[[Beowulf: the monsters and the critics|Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics]]'' (lecture on [[Beowulf]] criticism)
* 1939 ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' (Tolkien's philosophy on fantasy, given as the 1939 Andrew Lang lecture)
* 1944 ''[[Sir Orfeo]]'' (an edition of the medieval poem)
* 1947 ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' (essay, very central for understanding Tolkien's views on fastasy)
* 1953 ''Ofermod'', published with the poem ''The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son''
* 1953 ''Middle English "Losenger"''
* 1962 ''[[Ancrene Wisse]]: The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle''
* 1963 ''English and Welsh''
* 1966 ''[[Jerusalem Bible]]'' (contributing translator and lexicographer)

=== Posthumous Publications ===
* 1975 Translations of ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]'', ''[[Pearl]]'' and ''[[Sir Orfeo]]''
* 1976 ''[[The Father Christmas Letters]]''
* 1977 ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' ISBN 0-618-12698-8 (HM).
* 1979 ''Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien''
* 1980 ''[[Unfinished Tales]] of Númenor and Middle-earth'' ISBN 0-618-15405-1 (HM).
* 1980 ''Poems and Stories'' (a compilation of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]]'', ''The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son'', ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'', ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'', ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'' and ''[[Smith of Wootton Major]]'')
* 1981 ''[[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]'' (eds. [[Christopher Tolkien]] and [[Humphrey Carpenter]])
* 1981 ''The Old English Exodus Text''
* 1982 ''[[Finn and Hengest]]: The Fragment and the Episode''
* 1982 ''[[Mr. Bliss]]''
* 1983 ''[[The Monsters and the Critics]]'' (an essay collection)
** ''[[Beowulf: the monsters and the critics|Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics]]'' (1936)
** ''[[On Translating Beowulf]]'' (1940)
** ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'' (1947)
** ''[[A Secret Vice]]'' (1930)
** ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]''
** ''[[English and Welsh]]'' (1955)
* 1983–1996 ''[[The History of Middle-earth]]'':<ol type="I"><li>''[[The Book of Lost Tales 1]]'' (1983)</li><li>''[[The Book of Lost Tales 2]]'' (1984)</li><li>''[[The Lays of Beleriand]]'' (1985)</li><li>''[[The Shaping of Middle-earth]]'' (1986)</li><li>''[[The Lost Road and Other Writings]]'' (1987)</li><li>''[[The Return of the Shadow]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 1) (1988)</li><li>''[[The Treason of Isengard]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 2) (1989)</li><li>''[[The War of the Ring]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 3) (1990)</li><li>''[[Sauron Defeated]]'' (The History of ''The Lord of the Rings'' vol. 4, including [[The Notion Club Papers]]) (1992)</li><li>''[[Morgoth's Ring]]'' (The Later Silmarillion vol. 1) (1993)</li><li>''[[The War of the Jewels]]'' (The Later Silmarillion vol. 2) (1994)</li><li>''[[The Peoples of Middle-earth]]'' (1996)</li></ol>
** ''Index'' (2002)
* 1995 ''[[J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator]]'' (a compilation of Tolkien's art)
* 1998 ''[[Roverandom]]''
* 2002 ''Beowulf and the Critics'' ed. Michael D.C. Drout ("Beowulf: the monsters and the critics" together with editions of two drafts of the longer essay from which it was condensed.
* 2007 ''[[The Children of Húrin]]'' ed. Christopher Tolkien

=== Audio Recordings ===
* 1967 ''Poems and Songs of Middle-Earth'', Caedmon TC 1231
* 1975 ''J.R.R. Tolkien Reads and Sings his ''The Hobbit'' & ''The Lord of the Rings'', Caedmon TC 1477, TC 1478 (based on an August, 1952 recording by George Sayer)

==Awards==
This list contains awards or recognitions given to J.R.R. Tolkien, it does not include awards given to his individual publications.
* D. Lit., in University College, Dublin (1954)
* Commander of Order of the British Empire (1972)
* Doctorate of Letters by Oxford University (1972)
* 6th "best postwar British writer" (The Times, 2008) [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3127837.ece]

==Other names==
J, John, Ronald, Tollers, JRsquared, Ruginwaldus Dwalakôneis, Arcastar, "Eisphorides Acribus Polyglotteus, orator Graecorum", N.N, Fisiologvs, Kingston Bagpuize, Oxymore, Raegnold Hraedmoding

== References ==
* ''Biography'': Carpenter, Humphrey (1977). ''J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography'', New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-04-928037-6
* ''Letters'': Carpenter, Humphrey and Tolkien, Christopher (eds.) (1981). ''The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien''. ISBN 0-618-05699-8
* ''HoME'': Tolkien, Christopher (ed.) (12 volumes, 1996-2002), ''The History of Middle-earth''

== Further Reading ==
A small selection of books about Tolkien and his works:
* Anderson, Douglas A., Michael D. C. Drout and Verlyn Flieger (eds.) (2004). ‘’Tolkien Studies’’, Vol 1
* Chance, Jane (ed.) (2003). ''Tolkien the Medievalist'', London, New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28944-0
* Chance, Jane (ed.) (2004). ''Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, a Reader'', Louisville: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-813-12301-1
* Flieger, Verlyn and Carl F. Hostetter (eds.) (2000). ''Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle Earth'', Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-30530-7. DDC 823.912. LC PR6039.
* O'Neill, Timothy R. (1979). ''The Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien and the Archetypes of Middle-earth'', Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-28208-X
* Pearce, Joseph (1998). ''Tolkien: Man and Myth'', London: HarperCollinsPublishers. ISBN 000-274018-4
* Shippey, T. A. (2000). ''J.R.R. Tolkien — Author of the Century'', Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-12764-X, ISBN 0-618-25759-4 (pbk)
* Strachey, Barbara (1981). ''Journeys of Frodo: an Atlas of The Lord of the Rings'', London, Boston: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-049-12016-6
* Tolkien, John & Priscilla (1992). ''The Tolkien Family Album'', London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-26-110239-7
* White, Michael (2003). ''Tolkien: A Biography'', New American Library. ISBN 0451212428
* ''The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends''. Humphrey Carpenter (1979), ISBN 0395276284
* ''The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends''. Colin Duriez and David Porter (2001), ISBN 1902694139
* ''Finding God in the Lord of the Rings'''. Kurt D. Bruner and Jim Ware (2003), ISBN 084238555X
* ''Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship''. Colin Duriez (2003), ISBN 1587680262

==Notes==
# As described by Christopher Tolkien in ''Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks Konung'' (Oxford University, Trinity College). B. Litt. thesis. 1953/4. [Year uncertain], ''The Battle of the Goths and the Huns'', in: Saga-Book (University College, London, for the Viking Society for Northern Research) 14, part 3 (1955-6). See [http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/bibl4.html publications by and about Christopher Tolkien]
{{inklings}}
[[Category:Tolkien Family|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[Category:Authors|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[Category:T.C.B.S.|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[Category:Inklings|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[category:linguists|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
[[de:J.R.R. Tolkien]]
[[fr:tolkien:bio]]
[[fi:J.R.R. Tolkien]]