J.R.R. Tolkien|Goodman Games

Jan03

Adventures in Fiction: J.R.R. Tolkien

Posted by pandabrett on Jan 3, 2020

Adventures in Fiction: J.R.R. Tolkien By Chris Doyle John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in what is now South Africa. His parents, both English, had re-located so his father could accept a promotion with his current employer, a bank. He returned to England at the age of three, but his father succumbed to fever and never made the journey. Tolkien was a soldier (in the First World War, eventually reaching the rank of Lieutenant), a poet, a linguist, a professor, and most notably a writer. He is best known for authoring The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, literary classics that helped define the genre. Prior to penning these classics, Tolkien became the youngest professor at the University of Leeds. There he pursued translation, medieval studies, and private tutoring. He was also an acclaimed lecturer. In the 1920s, he spent six years translating Beowulf from Old English to modern English, which included adding hundreds of pages of his own commentary. This work would heavily inspire his later writing epics, yet he never published it. In 2014, his son, Christopher, edited and published the translation nearly 90 years following its completion. As a child, he is said to have been bitten by a large baboon spider, which could have been an influence of his later writings of Shelob in The Lord of the Rings. As the Second World War raged on, Tolkien was tapped by the British government to become a codebreaker. He agreed, and received formal training from the cryptographic department and even took classes at the London headquarters of the Government Code and Cypher School. Later that year he was informed his services would not be required. The popularity of The Hobbit and his epic, The Lord of the Rings, reinvigorated the fantasy genre in the 1960’s and earned him the moniker “The Father of High Fantasy.” Recent polls reveal to this day that he is a beloved author all over the world. Without question, he has soft spot in many role-players as a heavy inspiration to their beloved fantasy RPGs, especially Dungeons & Dragons. But was he a “heavy inspiration”? To the casual RPG fan, D&D is steeped in Tolkien lore. The original game (1974) contained direct references to ents, balrogs, orcs, and of course hobbits. Due to the popularity of the game, this eventually resulted in...

Mar04

Real Life Adventures: The Tolkien Exhibit at the Morgan Museum

Posted by pandabrett on Mar 4, 2019

Real Life Adventures: The Tolkien Exhibit at the Morgan Museum

Real Life Adventures – The Tolkien Exhibit at the Morgan Museum by Michael Curtis A couple of days before Valentine’s Day, as snow and freezing rain spit down upon me, I found myself standing on a railroad station platform awaiting the arrival of the train that would whisk me away into the heart of New York City. Poor weather notwithstanding, I was on a quest, one that would take me more than 100 years into the past by our reckoning and by untold centuries by another. I was bound for the Morgan Museum & Library to view their new exhibit, “Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth.” This exhibit, which runs from January 25th to May 12, 2019, features a collection of items pertaining to J.R.R. Tolkien’s life and creations on loan from the Bodleian Libraries (Oxford), Marquette Universities Libraries (Milwaukee), the Morgan, and private lenders. This impressive collection is one of the largest public displays of Tolkien-related works and items in several generations, and is perhaps an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for those in North America to examine rare pieces of literary history. Museum policy prohibits photography so I was unable to document my visit to the Morgan. I’ll do my best to describe what is on display at the exhibit, which is a poor substitute for seeing it yourself. However, if you can’t make it, the opportunity to glimpse the exhibit’s complete catalog is available and you can find links at the end of this essay for how to do so. But, now, let’s take a virtual trip through the exhibit. The exhibit is extensive and well-planned. Visitors walk through a round hobbit-hole front door, the vista of the Shire as rendered by Tolkien, himself, in one of his watercolor paintings visible beyond the door. Once immersed in the world of Tolkien’s imagination, the visitor is gently lead through an examination of Tolkien’s life, beginning with his birth in South Africa and his eventual relocation to England following his father’s death. We’re granted a rare look at early childhood photos and letters, as well as documents pertaining to Tolkien’s life under the guardianship of Father Francis Morgan after his mother’s death, and remembrances of his meeting his future wife, Edith Bratt. Among these items representing Tolkien’s school days are several illustrations and paintings that hint at the much larger imaginary world (or...

Home » J.R.R. Tolkien