Tag Archives: Tolkien’s life

The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth

Posted on 26 January 2021 by John Garth

‘Magnificent. The commentary is great, really thoroughly researched; the pictures are stunning’ — Tom Shippey, author of The Road to Middle-earth and J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century From world-renowned Tolkien expert John Garth comes the authoritative exploration of the … Continue reading →

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Tolkien’s last friend in Oxford when the world went to war

Posted on 29 July 2019 by John Garth

‘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 →

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Tolkien at Exeter College: Birth of a legend

Posted on 14 April 2017 by John Garth

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 →

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Tanks at Gondolin

Posted on 9 December 2016 by John Garth

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 →

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Beren and Lúthien, a centenary publication

Posted on 19 October 2016 by John Garth

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Since writing this, Tolkien’s Beren and Lúthien has been published, so the speculations below regarding its content are out of date.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 →

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Robert Quilter Gilson, TCBS – a documentary

Posted on 11 May 2016 by John Garth

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 →

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Tolkien’s ‘immortal four’ meet for the last time

Posted on 25 September 2015 by John Garth

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 →

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Middle-earth turns 100

Posted on 24 September 2014 by John Garth

It is 100 years since Middle-earth began. The earliest glimpse of any character or situation from his mythology was in a poem, ‘The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star’, which J.R.R. Tolkien dated 24 September 1914. He wrote it at … Continue reading →

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Tolkien at fifteen, a warrior-to-be

Posted on 5 March 2014 by John Garth

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 →

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The Tolkien brothers in Bumble Dell

Posted on 17 February 2014 by John Garth

Tolkien’s brother Hilary was born 120 years ago today. To mark the occasion, I reproduce here my review of Black and White Ogre Country, a book of his jotted reminiscences covering their childhood, the storied world as they imagined it, … Continue reading →

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