This book takes a fresh look at Tolkien’s literary artistry from the points of view of both linguistics and literary history, with the aim of shedding light on the literary techniques used in The Lord of the Rings. The authors study Tolkien’s use of words, style, narrative techniques, rhetoric and symbolism to highlight his status as literary artist. Dirk Siepmann uses a corpus stylistic approach to analyse Tolkien’s vocabulary and syntax, while Thomas Kullmann uses discourse theo...

This revised and updated examination of how J.R.R.Tolkien came to write his original masterpiece The Hobbit includes his complete unpublished draft version of the story, together with notes and illustrations by Tolkien himself.The Hobbit was first published on 21 September 1937. Like its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, it is a story that ‘grew in the telling’, and many characters and plot threads in the published text are quite different f...

The world first publication of a previously unknown work of fantasy by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the powerful story of a doomed young man who is sold into slavery and who swears revenge on the magician who killed his father.Kullervo son of Kalervo is perhaps the darkest and most tragic of all J.R.R. Tolkien’s characters. ‘Hapless Kullervo’, as Tolkien called him, is a luckless orphan boy with supernatural powers and a tragic destiny.Brought up in the homestead of the dark...

" With New Line Cinema's production of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the popularity of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien is unparalleled. Tolkien's books continue to be bestsellers decades after their original publication. An epic in league with those of Spenser and Malory, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, begun during Hitler's rise to power, celebrates the insignificant individual as hero in the modern world. Jane Chance's critical appraisal of Tolkien's heroic masterwork is the first to ex...

The definitive critical study of Tolkien’s greatest works by the respected and world renowned Tolkien scholar Professor T.A. Shippey.Following the unprecedented and universal acclaim for The Lord of the Rings, the respected academic and world-renowned Tolkien scholar, Professor Tom Shippey, presents us with a fascinating and informed companion to the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, in particular focusing on The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and ...

The Lord of the Rings trilogy has delighted millions of fans worldwide in book and movie form. With the theatrical release of the two-part film The Hobbit slated for 2012 and 2013, attention will once again turn to J. R. R. Tolkien's classic works. In a culture where truth is relative and morality is viewed as old-fashioned, we welcome the chance to view the world through hobbit eyes: we have free will, our choices matter, and living a morally heroic life is possible.In th...

The definitive Tolkien companion—an indispensable guide to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and more, from the author of The Road to Middle-earth.This "highly erudite celebration and exploration of Tolkien's works [is] enormous fun," declared the Houston Chronicle, and Tom Shippey, a prominent medievalist and scholar of fantasy, "deepens your understanding" without "making you forget your initial, purely instinctive response to Middle-e...

This group of new critical essays offers multidisciplinary analysis of director Peter Jackson's spectacularly successful adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003). Part One of the collection, "Techniques of Structure and Story," compares and contrasts the organizational principles of the books and films. Part Two, "Techniques of Character and Culture," focuses on the methods used to ...

The Lord of the Rings is intended to be applicable to the real world of relationships, religion, pleasure, pain, and politics. Tolkien himself said that his grand tale of wizards, orcs, hobbits, and elves was aimed at truth and good morals in the actual world.Analysis of the popular appeal of The Lord of the Rings (on websites and elsewhere) shows that Tolkien fans are hungry for discussion of the urgent moral and cosmological issues arising out of this fantastic epic story.C...

First ever critical study of Tolkien’s little-known essay, which reveals how language invention shaped the creation of Middle-earth and beyond, to George R R Martin’s Game of Thrones.J.R.R. Tolkien’s linguistic invention was a fundamental part of his artistic output, to the extent that later on in life he attributed the existence of his mythology to the desire to give his languages a home and peoples to speak them. As Tolkien puts it in ‘A Secret Vice’, ‘t...

'Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.' Addressed to Frodo as he prepared to travel from Lothlórien to Mordor to destroy the One Ring, the prophetic words of Galadriel in the film The Fellowship of the Ring are just as pertinent to J R R Tolkien's own fiction. For decades, hobbits, elves, dwarves, dragons and the other fantastical creatures of Middle-earth have captured the imaginations of a fiercely loyal tribe of readers, all enhanced by the immense success of Pet...

The second part of The History of The Lord of the Rings, an enthralling account of the writing of the Book of the Century which contains many additional scenes and includes the unpublished Epilogue in its entirety.The Treason of Isengard continues the account of the creation of The Lord of the Rings started in the earlier volume, The Return of the Shadow.It races the great expansion of the tale into new lands and peoples south and...