Issue 78

Windows on the life and work of J.R.R. Tolkien

An American professor spent a summer with Tolkien. He remembers the man, his faith, and his writings.

At odds with his age, he created another.

Without philology, Middle-earth would never have exisited. But what is philology?

Tolkien joined these authors in countering the decadence of a dark century.

How did Tolkien’s approach to writing for a secularizing world compare with those of his Christian contemporaries?

Catholicism anchored Tolkien’s life and suffused his writings.

The characters are mythic, but the epic sweeps across a Christian moral landscape.

Tolkien relished his weekly meetings with this club of remarkable friends.

Tolkien and Lewis made an odd couple, but the contributed profoundly to each other’s work.

His were small people surmounting impossible odds.

Scores of authors have paid Tolkien the highest homage – imitation.

Like Bilbo discovering one dwarf after another at his door, Tolkien found himself, in the 1960s, hosting a growing American fan club.

From light romps to profound reads, a bumper crop of books tells us more about the maker of Middle-earth.