About this item
This book takes you to the places that inspired J. R. R. Tolkien to create his fictional locations in The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and other classic works. Written by renowned Tolkien expert John Garth, The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien features a wealth of breathtaking illustrations, including Tolkien's own drawings, contributions from other artists, rare archival images, and spectacular color photos of contemporary locations across Britain and beyond, from the battlefields of World War I to Africa. Garth identifies the locales that served as the basis for Hobbiton, the elven valley of Rivendell, the Glittering Caves of Helm's Deep, and many other settings in Middle-earth, from mountains and forests to rivers, lakes, and shorelands. He reveals the rich interplay between Tolkien's personal travels, his wide reading, and his deep scholarship as an Oxford don. Garth draws on his profound knowledge of Tolkien's life and work to shed light on the extraordinary processes of invention behind Tolkien's works of fantasy. He also debunks popular misconceptions about the inspirations for Middle-earth and puts forward strong new claims of his own. An illustrated journey into the life and imagination of one of the world's best-loved authors, The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien provides a unique exploration of the relationship between the real and the fantastical and is an essential companion for anyone who wants to follow in Tolkien's footsteps.
About the Author
John Garth was born in 1966 and grew up in the Home Counties of England before studying English Language and Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford University. He has since pursued a career in news journalism, both writing and editing in print and online, and he worked for many years for the London Evening Standard. He lives with his wife Jessica and their daughter Lorelei. A long-standing passion for the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, coupled with a growing curiosity about the individual's experience of war, led to the writing of Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth. The authoritative account of Tolkien's life in and around the 1914-18 conflict, it is the fruit of five years' research in public archives, among the family papers of Tolkien and his close friends, and on the site of the Battle of the Somme. Tolkien and the Great War has been described by C.S. Lewis biographer A.N. Wilson as a 'masterpiece' and 'very much the best book on J.R.R. Tolkien that has yet been written'. It garnered the Mythopoeic Award for Scholarship in 2004 and has so far been published in Great Britain, the United States, Italy and China.John Garth has also reviewed books for the Times Literary Supplement, The Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Observer, The Evening Standard and others. He is a regular contributor to the annual scholarly journal Tolkien Studies and has spoken at the National Army Museum in London, as a special guest of various societies, and at international conferences. He is interviewed on the extended DVD edition of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and on National Geographic's Beyond the Movie: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.His numerous other interests include history; northern mythologies; language and place-names; rock and pop, especially from the 1960s to the 1980s; photography; and the great outdoors. As well as Tolkien, he is also partial to (among others) Charles Dickens, Susan Cooper, Frank Herbert, William Blake, Tove Jansson, Alan Garner, John Irving, Thomas Hardy, W.B. Yeats, and the vintage television tour de force that is The Clangers.For further information and to read more of John Garth's writings, visit his website at www.johngarth.co.uk
