The nine contributions to Reconsidering Tolkien approach Tolkiens work from a variety of theoretical viewpoints. Marion Gymnich, Eduardo Segura and Guillermo Peris discuss the importance of Language and languages for Tolkiens narrative work, while Thomas Honegger and Paul E. Kerry focus on the historical sources and the historicising framework respectively. The essays by Natasa Tucev and Jean-Christophe Dufau investigate the archetypal and mythic dimensions. Dirk Vanderbeke, then, takes a critical look at Tolkiens presentation of knowledge, and Martin Simonson discusses the influence of World...

Root and Branch, which was first published in 1999, comprises articles by Patrick Curry, Thomas Honegger and Christina Ljungberg. The first paper, by Thomas Honegger, looks at a structural instance of 'depth' in Tolkien's work by means of discussing the various occurences of the Man in the Moon. Patrick's Curry extensive study addresses the question of why Tolkien's work is simultaneously so enduringly popular with readers and so abhorrent to literary critics. Christina Ljungberg's contribution discusses parallels between Tolkien's depiction of Nature and power and the one found in Margaret...

News from the Shire and Beyond - Studies on Tolkien comprises selected papers of the Swiss Tolkien Society's Cormare conference held at Seelisberg in 1996, and provides a cross-section of topics in the field of Tolkien studies. The spectrum ranges from Johannesson's linguistic study of the Shire-talk, Honegger's analysis of the narrative constitution of Middle-earth to Buchs' and Naf's contributions on the representation of Tolkien's world in the Middle-earth Collectible Card Game. It is a revised reprint featuring five of the six items of the original 1997 edition.

This volume presents papers by Tom Shippey, Verlyn Flieger, Colin Duriez, Patrick Curry, John Garth, Martin Simonson, Dieter Bachmann, Devin Brown, Miryam Libran-Moreno, Eugenio Olivares-Merino, Margarita Carretero-Gonzalez, Fernando J. Soto & Marta Garcia de la Puerta, Eduardo Segura and Thomas Honegger. The essays focus on the use of Myth, Magic, and Art in the works of the Inklings and explore the interconnectedness of these concepts in the thinking of the members of this group.

In the year after his graduation from Exeter College, Oxford, the great mythopoeic work for which he would become famous was already germinating in Tolkiens mind. In August 2006 the College offered a week of seminars and papers by leading international specialists on Tolkiens Exeter years, the influence of the Great War, the healing power of his narrative, and its relevance to religious and linguistic studies, comparative mythology, and history. Priscilla Tolkien, C.S. Lewiss secretary and friend Walter Hooper, Tolkiens friend the Jesuit priest Robert Murray SJ, and grandson Simon Tolkien...

"It is precisely against the darkness of the world that comedy arises, and it is best when that is not hidden."

With these words Tolkien replied to Rayner Unwin's comments upon first reading Book 1 of Lord of the Rings. Rayner had not commented on the comedy of Book 1 but on the overpowering effect of "the struggle between darkness and light," as he put it, and that omission disappointed Tolkien. If this was the response of Tolkien's famous first reviewer, it is not surprising that academic studies have also tended to overlook or disregard both the presence of humour in...