The Tolkien Shop

Tolkien’s Middle-earth and its legendarium have drawn extensive scholarly attention. But there is more to Tolkien than the history and legends of Middle-earth, and there has hitherto been a certain lack of academic criticism focused primarily on his shorter fictional works Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wootton Major, Roverandom and his poetry. Although scholarly evaluations of these works exist, they often deal with the shorter texts more as an afterthought, as footnotes to the ‘major’ texts rather than as demanding attention in their own right. This dearth of studies suggests that it is time for a closer look at Tolkien’s 'Shorter Works'. The current volume collects the findings of a joint conference of Walking Tree Publishers and the German Tolkien Society at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany in 2007. Various interesting aspects, details and connections are unearthed which are likely to broaden not simply the understanding of Tolkien’s Shorter Works, but also of the author’s overall fictional work as well as the man and author J.R.R. Tolkien himself. *

Walking Tree, 2011. 1st edition. Paperback. Cover by the author.

Traditionally, the "Inklings" C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams have been seen as separate from the literature of their time: as innovative in an idiosyncratic way at best, and as reactionary and in deliberate opposition to contemporary progressive writing at worst. Recent years have seen a gradual change in this view, but few studies to date have attempted to read Lewis, Tolkien and Williams alongside their most famous contemporaries: the literary modernists.

This monograph represents the first full-length study to draw explicit and indepth comparisons between the Inklings and writers such as T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and David Jones among others. An examination of both thematic and structural concerns reveals a number of shared issues that go beyond mere responses to the cataclysmic events of the first half of the twentieth century. Myth as theme and structuring device, world-building as an attempt to render the author’s subjective reality objective and authoritative, writing as an (unsuccessful) attempt to overcome the nightmare of history, and language as both the paradoxical means of creation and the reason creation must fail: these concerns and tensions are central to the works of both Inklings and modernists. In establishing that the works of Lewis, Tolkien and Williams contain aspects that can be termed “modernist”, this study also hopes to show that certain aspects of modernism might very well be termed "fantastic". *

Llyfrawr, 2009. 1st edition. Paperback. Illustrated. Signed by the author.

This is a second volume of articles by Mark T. Hooker that picks up where A Tolkienian Mathomium left off. Hooker's analysis is from a linguistic perspective similar to Tolkien's. "If you liked the last one, you're going to like this one," says the Foreword. Beyond Bree and Hither Shore said that there is "something [in A Tolkienian Mathomium] for everyone with even a passing interest in Tolkien. All of the articles are well researched, insightful, and highly informative." Tolkien Studies said that it is a "pleasantly eccentric volume ... Hooker has a wide variety of things to say that have not been heard before." Tolkien Collector's Guide said A Tolkienian Mathomium "is one of the most unique sets of essays on Tolkien I have read in the past 10 years." An early review by The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza of the analysis of the origin of the name Tom Bombadil appearing in The Hobbitonian Anthology ranks it as "the best explanation yet of how the name Tom Bombadil came into being."

"Examines the sociological impact of the translation and publication of Tolkien’s works in post-Soviet Russia. Discusses the many competing translations in Russian and how they have adapted the books to the Russian mental climate." 1st edition. Paperback. Signed by the author.

Cold Spring Harbor, 2002. 1st edition. Paperback.

Lehigh University Press, 2009. 1st edition. Hardback. Illustrated.

In "Arda Reconstructed: The Creation of the Published Silmarillion", Douglas C. Kane reveals a tapestry woven by Christopher Tolkien from different portions of his father's work that is often quite mind-boggling, with inserts that seemed initially to have been editorial inventions shown to have come from some remote portion of Tolkien's vast body of work. He demonstrates how material that was written over the course of more than thirty years was merged together to create a single, coherent text. He also makes a frank appraisal of the material omitted by Christopher Tolkien (and in a couple of egregious cases the material invented by him) and how these omissions and insertions may have distorted his father's vision of what he considered - even more then "The Lord of the Rings" - to be his most important work. It is a fascinating portrait of a unique collaboration that reached beyond the grave.*

Lehigh University Press, 2011. 1st edition as paperback. Illustrated.

In "Arda Reconstructed: The Creation of the Published Silmarillion", Douglas C. Kane reveals a tapestry woven by Christopher Tolkien from different portions of his father's work that is often quite mind-boggling, with inserts that seemed initially to have been editorial inventions shown to have come from some remote portion of Tolkien's vast body of work. He demonstrates how material that was written over the course of more than thirty years was merged together to create a single, coherent text. He also makes a frank appraisal of the material omitted by Christopher Tolkien (and in a couple of egregious cases the material invented by him) and how these omissions and insertions may have distorted his father's vision of what he considered - even more then "The Lord of the Rings" - to be his most important work. It is a fascinating portrait of a unique collaboration that reached beyond the grave.*

Seven essays (like "L’épopée religieuse de J.R.R. Tolkien", "Smith of Wootton Major; un testament poétique" and "essai de microanalyse des Mewlips"), a bibiografie and a chronology. 1st edition. Paperback.

"This collection of abridged, previously published essays provides sophisticated analyses of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The introductory essay presents solid biographical background on Tolkien. Tom Shippey's concluding essay, which identifies Tolkien's sources in developing Middle-earth, is perhaps the most useful in the collection. The editor also includes a thorough chronology of Tolkien's life, times, and work." 1st edition. Hardback (no dustjacket issued).

"This collection of abridged, previously published essays provides sophisticated analyses of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The introductory essay presents solid biographical background on Tolkien. Tom Shippey's concluding essay, which identifies Tolkien's sources in developing Middle-earth, is perhaps the most useful in the collection. The editor also includes a thorough chronology of Tolkien's life, times, and work." 1st edition. Paperback.

ADC, 2009. 1st edition. Paperback.

Lewis and Currie continue their ground-breaking studies with an examination of Tolkien’s most personal story, the Tale of Beren and Lúthien in its various forms. It is analysed from the early version in the Book of Lost Tales, through the incomparable poetry of the Lay of Leithian, through to beyond the Silmarillion version and the ideas that Tolkien was working towards the end of his life. The astonishing and powerful connections between Beren and Lúthien’s tale and the Arthurian legends in their various forms are examined and give a fascinating glimpse into the world of medieval literature which Professor Tolkien knew and loved so well. Find out how Tevildo Demon-Prince of Cats came into the tale and then was dropped in favour of other concepts, how Tolkien pondered over whether Beren should be a mortal man or an immortal elf. And throughout these tales run the foundations of Arthurian Story in a fascinating way. The connections that Lewis and Currie pursue lead to an elegant and original explanation of the creative purpose behind the Book of Lost Tales as a concept, and also give compelling insight as to how this related to the concept inherent within the Silmarillion and Tolkien’s Legendarium itself. In Epic Realms of Tolkien, learn also of the true significance of the Eriol / Aelfwine character and his adventures and deeds.

Lewis and Currie will continue their investigations into the links in Tolkien’s writings with the Arthurian tradition in Part Two.

Open Court, 2003. 1st edition thus. Paperback. Ten articles on Tolkien, with a new foreword by Tom Shippey and a new postscript by Jared Lobdell.