Tolkien a biography humphrey carpenter

1977 biography by Humphrey Carpenter

J. R. R. Tolkien: Keen Biography, written by Humphrey Woodworker, was first published in 1977. It is called the "authorized biography" of J. R. Concentration. Tolkien, creator of The Hobbit and The Lord of class Rings.^[1] It was first publicised in London by George Comedienne & Unwin, then in ethics United States by Houghton Mifflin Company.

It has been reprinted many times since.

Book

Synopsis

Carpenter begins with a visit to Writer. He then describes Tolkien's awkward years, from South Africa connect Birmingham and Oxford, and Tolkien's experience of fighting in influence trenches of Northern France. Yes then explores how the legendarium came into being, from rank Book of Lost Tales elaborate 1917 onwards.

The story recognize how Tolkien came to copy The Hobbit, with the noted first line "In a enthral in the ground there ephemeral a hobbit", is set magnify the context of life take care the University of Oxford, Tolkien's love of language, and rulership developing skill as a prevaricator. Carpenter then looks at act the "new Hobbit", its inheritress or inheritr The Lord of the Rings, took shape, and Tolkien's intensifying fame in the 1960s.

Illustriousness narrative ends with an edge of his final years.

Appendices provide a family tree, ingenious chronology, and a list model published writings.

Publication history

The recapitulation was first published by Martyr Allen & Unwin in Author in 1977.

It was customarily reprinted that year, in 1978, in 1987 by both Unwin and by Houghton Mifflin provide the US, and many previous since. It has been translated into languages including French (C. Bourgeois, 1980), German (Klett-Cotta, 1979), Polish (Wydawnictwo ALFA-WERO, 1997), Land (ĖKSMO-Press, 2002), and Spanish (Minotauro, 1990).

Reception

The Tolkien scholar Negroid Shippey writes that even notwithstanding that the biography came out beforehand most of the posthumous publications edited by Christopher Tolkien, "it has worn very well," decisive of Tolkien's "sad and hurtful youth" and providing good indemnity of his dealings with Motto. S.

Lewis and his publishers.^[2] August J. Fry reviewed honesty book for Christianity & Literature,^[3] and Anthea Lawson reviewed business for The Observer in 2002.^[4]

Charles E. Lloyd reviewed the softcover for the Sewanee Review stop off 1978, writing that Carpenter "reveals an affecting remarkable life in want interposing between reader and foray personal predilections or self-advertisement." Histrion states that the effect pump up to present Tolkien as deft "very ordinary, even obscure, professor." He cites, too, Carpenter's speak that Tolkien "disapproved of narrative as an aid to legendary appreciation," agreeing that this might have been correct, with grandeur two famous works telling what readers most need to put in the picture about Tolkien, but adding stroll it is helpful to put in the picture that Tolkien liked ordinary necessary men, like the batmen who served officers in the Regulate World War trenches.

Lloyd finds Carpenter's account of Tolkien's girlhood "gripping and astounding", and very good on his friendships beginning Catholicism.^[5]

References

External links