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Category Archives: Tolkien in the First World War
Tolkien’s last friend in Oxford when the world went to war
‘Not a single man I know is up except Cullis,’ Tolkien lamented at the start of his final year as an Oxford student. It was 1914, war had just broken out, and their friends had left in droves to enlist … Continue reading
Win over £1,000/$1,000 worth of Tolkien books and help Oxford University preserve First World War history
I’ve donated five signed copies of Tolkien and the Great War to help raise money for this appeal. There are some substantially more valuable prizes too. It is only thanks to the personal letters and photographs preserved by various Great … Continue reading
Posted in Research tangents, Tolkien in the First World War
Tagged First World War, J.R.R. Tolkien
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Tolkien at Exeter College: Birth of a legend
In which I blow my own trumpet… When you picture J.R.R. Tolkien, it’s probably as a member of Oxford’s Inklings, writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the 1930s and ’40s, or in old age when fame … Continue reading
Posted in 100 years of Middle-earth, Book news and reviews, John Garth’s writing, Tolkien in the First World War, Uncategorized
Tagged Beowulf, Biography, Exeter College, First World War, J.R.R. Tolkien, Middle-earth, Oxford, Silmarillion, Tolkien's college friends, Tolkien's life, Tolkien's writing
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Tanks at Gondolin
Here’s an excerpt from my book Tolkien and the Great War to mark the centenary of Tolkien’s discharge on 9 December 1916 from military hospital, where he had begun writing his first ‘lost tale’ of Middle-earth, ‘The Fall of Gondolin’. … Continue reading
Beren and Lúthien, a centenary publication
Note, 2 June 2017: Since writing this, Tolkien’s Beren and Lúthien has been published, so the speculations below regarding its content are out of date. My New Statesman review of the book as published can be read here. In … Continue reading
Robert Quilter Gilson, TCBS – a documentary
When Tolkien writes in the Foreword to The Lord of the Rings that ‘by 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead’, he is referring to his friends in a clique formed at school but later bonded by … Continue reading
Tolkien’s ‘immortal four’ meet for the last time
Best Article, Tolkien Society Awards 2016 Also available in Spanish and Portuguese. One hundred years ago today, four young men convened in an English town, not having seen each other for some time. What makes this trivial event significant is … Continue reading
Why World War One Is at the heart of Lord of the Rings
It’s sixty years since the publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s first volume of The Lord of The Rings. Why was he so inspired by the Great War—and a group of schoolfriends? War runs like iron ore through the bones of Tolkien’s … Continue reading
Tolkien at fifteen, a warrior-to-be
A newly discovered photograph reveals J.R.R. Tolkien at fifteen in his school’s new cadet corps—launched in 1907 as nations geared up for war. Tolkien is one of some 120 unnamed figures in the picture, unearthed by the history department at … Continue reading
Sam Gamgee and Tolkien’s batmen
Tolkien, like a good poker player, kept his cards close to his chest, and gave very little away about the impact of experience upon his fiction. He could be less guarded in private, as Humphrey Carpenter revealed in his 1977 J.R.R. … Continue reading
John Garth 