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J.r.r. Tolkien: Author of the Century Paperback – September 8, 2002

by Tom Shippey (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 265 ratings
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Recent polls have consistently declared that J.R.R. Tolkien is "the most influential author of the century," and The Lord of the Rings is "the book of the century." In support of these claims, the prominent medievalist and scholar of fantasy Professor Tom Shippey now presents us with a fascinating companion to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, focusing in particular on The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.
The core of the book examines The Lord of the Rings as a linguistic and cultural map and as a response to the meaning of myth. It presents a unique argument to explain the nature of evil and also gives the reader a compelling insight into the unparalleled level of skill necessary to construct such a rich and complex story. Shippey also examines The Hobbit, explaining the hobbits' anachronistic relationship to the heroic world of Middle-earth, and shows the fundamental importance of The Silmarillion to the canon of Tolkien's work. He offers as well an illuminating look at other, lesser-known works in their connection to Tolkien's life.
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  1. Print length
    384 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    William Morrow
  4. Publication date
    September 8, 2002
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.88 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0618257594
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0618257591
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"He is of all writers on Tolkien the one most worth reading" -- David Bratman, Mythprint

"Professor Shippey's commentary is the best so far in elucidating Tolkien's lovely myth." Harper's Magazine

"Authoritative and timely." Boston Globe

"Wonderfully readable...Shippey makes an impressive case for why the creator of Middle-earth is deserving of acclaim." Publishers Weekly

"Shippey is a rarity, a scholar well-schooled in critical analysis whose writing is beautifully clear." Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"Delightful exploration of the relationship between Tolkien's fiction...scholarly work and the mythical, linguistic and philosiphical history underlying both." Salon

"[Tolkien] deserves his full due, and Shippey's appreciative assessment of his unique achievement provides it in full and satisfying measure." Philadelphia Inquirer

"Shippey presents a remarkably insightful account of the origins of Tolkien's use of language and myth." The Chicago Tribune

"Full of things-we-hadn't-known...As scholarship, it's one of the more enjoyable works I've run across." The San Diego Union-Tribune

"[Shippey] deepens your understanding of the work without making you forget your initial, purely instinctive response to Middle-earth and hobbits." The Houston Chronicle

"An invaluable study...It illuminates the text and enables the reader to better appreciate the works under discussion." The Washington Times —

About the Author

Tom Shippey taught at Oxford University at the same time as J.R.R. Tolkien and with the same syllabus, which gives him an intimate familiarity with the works that fueled Tolkien's imagination. He subsequently held the chair of English language and medieval literature at Leeds University that Tolkien had previously held.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Morrow (September 8, 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0618257594
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0618257591
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.88 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 265 ratings

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  1. Tom Shippey

    Tom Shippey

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    TOM SHIPPEY received his PhD from the University of Cambridge. In an academic teaching career lasting 43 years (1965-2008), he taught at six universities, including Oxford and Harvard. His first published article, more than fifty years ago, was “The Fairy-Tale Structure of Beowulf” (1969), while his first published book was Old English Verse (1972). Since then, he has published well over a hundred academic articles, and more than twenty monographs and edited collections, notably (with Andreas Haarder) The Critical Heritage: Beowulf (1998). His most recent books are Beowulf and the North before the Vikings (2022)., and (with Leonard Neidorf) Beowulf: A New Translation and Commentary (2023). He has also written more than 200 reviews on fantasy and science fiction for The Wall Street Journal, as well as many contributions, often on archaeology, to The London Review of Books. He is well known for books that have reached a wider community of readers outside academia, such as Laughing Shall I Die (2018) and his much-reprinted and often-translated books on Tolkien, The Road to Middle-earth (1981) and J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (2000).

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  2. T. A. Shippey

    T. A. Shippey

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
265 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Sarah P
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding erudition
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2024
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This is a must read for any Ring/ Hobbit/ Tolkein fan.
Stuffed with facts and details about the origin of many of the stories Tolkein used in his many books "of fiction".
Terrifically entertaining.
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Chris Maska
5.0 out of 5 stars Ragnarok or Divine Comedy
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2022
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Who is the author of the century? Fortunately, that is not the subject of this book. The real subject, which is much more interesting, is what was Tolkien doing? What was a devout Catholic doing with pagan stories in the twentieth century? How could an Oxford expert on ancient languages write works that have for decades stirred the imagination of young and old, believers and agnostics? This is a book by an author who has thought deeply about Tolkien's stories. There are arguments you might disagree with, but not arguments that are not worth pondering.
Of particular interest is Tolkien's blending of Norse and Christian themes. The Norse gods are fated to fight the battle of Ragnarok which they are doomed to lose. Yet they fight with no hope of victory. Are the battles in the Lord of the Rings similar? Why not make peace with the Dark Lord since there is no hint of an afterlife in Middle Earth? However, the battles of the ring are not Ragnarok. While facing great odds, the end is not pre ordained. Such battles are fought because it is better to suffer evil, risk the hazards of battle, than to do evil and serve Sauron. While there is no hope of heaven, so it was through much of human history until the preaching of the Gospel. Even the Jews at the time of Christ were divided as to the issue of whether there was a heaven. The rest of mankind had various beliefs but none was the Christian heaven. Shippey goes too far in presenting Tolkien's dilemma of reconciling Christianity with Norse myth. Although there is real tension and the question asked is worth pondering.
6 people found this helpful
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Tuckerby
4.0 out of 5 stars Informative
Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2014
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If you are looking for a Tolkien biography or the behind-the-scenes, dramatic story of how ‘Lord of the Rings’ got written, you won’t find it here. If, however, an academic study of the influences, motivations, and themes that contributed to and permeated Tolkien’s books appeals to you, you’ve come to the right place.

Author of the Century and Prof. Shippey’s other book, Road to Middle Earth, both cover the same material, but in slightly different ways. Each makes unique points, but overall, there is a lot of repetition. If you are only going to buy one of these books, I’d recommend “Road to Middle Earth” for its fuller exploration of philology, underlying themes and concepts in Tolkien’s works, defense against selected criticisms, and Tolkien’s early drafts and later revisions.

Both books start off with detailed explanation of philology. Dictionary definitions of the word fail to capture the scope and depth of the field that was Tolkien’s passion and which influenced his books so enormously. Through Prof. Shippey’s analysis, one glimpses a complexity to the novels that would otherwise go unnoticed. Tolkien was keenly intrigued by the origins and meanings of words. He saw in ancient texts, whether Old English, Old Norse, or Anglo-Saxon, hints of stories now forgotten, words that teased him with their obscure meanings. What were these lost legends? What did the unusual words mean and what did they imply about the world that gave rise to them? Tolkien wanted to create a mythology that could account for the concepts behind the words, a mythology that explained dwarves and elves, dragons and ents. Tolkien’s stories were often patterned after existing texts and records of actual cultures, but also reflected modern experiences.

A combat veteran of the first World War, Tolkien also witnessed the horrors brought by the second—extermination camps, genocide, bombing of civilian populations, weapons of mass destruction—things Prof. Shippey tells us were unthinkable to the Victorian culture Tolkien had grown up in. A sense that “something had gone horribly wrong” with the world could not fail to seep into the writings of those who lived through those times. Thus, one theme of “Lord of the Rings” was the nature of evil, and another that of sorrow. Even if the quest is achieved and Sauron defeated, the world cannot go back to what it was. Beautiful things of old will fade, some wounds will never heal.

Prof. Shippey focuses mostly on the Lord of the Rings, but also discusses Tolkien’s other works. The Hobbit is presented as primarily the clash between two cultures, the modern world represented by Bilbo and the hobbits, undeniably English of Victorian or Edwardian times, and the archaic world of the dwarves, colored by heroic sagas like Beowulf. The Silmarillien, the work of Tolkien’s heart and his lifelong project, is patterned after Genesis and the Fall; in this case, the Fall is that of the elves, whose sin is the desire to make things that reflect themselves. Tolkien’s short stories are not forgotten, but examined for the insights they give to Tolkien’s moods and perspectives.

Prof. Shippey’s ideas make for engaging reading. His responses to assorted Tolkien critics are icing on the cake. He makes a convincing case that many critical remarks are hypocritical, imperceptive, and elitist. He also suggests that Tolkien’s “elementary sensibilities—over patriotism, over euphemism, and especially over sex and marriage” were held against him and prevented a fair reading of his books. That Tolkien has appealed to a broad demographic range for decades shows clearly that people find his stories relevant even if they are fantasy and don’t conform to critics’ ideas of what constitutes “good literature.”

I came away from both “Author of the Century” and “Road to Middle Earth” with a greater appreciation for Tolkien’s books and a better understanding of how they came to be written. Do give one or both a try.
15 people found this helpful
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Orson Scott Card
5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Overview of Tolkien's Work and Its Place in Literature
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2019
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Tom Shippey is the best writer, thinker, and scholar who has ever written about Tolkien. It's not that he and I agree on Tolkien's importance, it's that he brings his own deep and wide understanding of philology to the study of Tolkien, along with his ability never to lose sight of the primacy of the reader over the critic in determining the value of a literary work. The fact that Tolkien's readers have never paid the slightest attention to denigrating critics does not remove the need to take their criticisms seriously and suggest which ones are worth considering.

Apart from the critics who reveal that they have never read or at least never understood Lord of the Rings or any other Tolkien work, there are still actual flaws in Tolkien's work, and Shippey isn't afraid to discuss them. This is not a Hero-Does-No-Wrong bit of literary hagiography; on the contrary, Shippey points out flaws and still supports our high regard for the most meticulous -- and, arguably, the most experimental -- of 20th Century writers in English.

I will be requiring the students in my Literature of Tolkien and Lewis course to read this book as the best guide to serious discussion of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Since the best competing (nonbiographical) resources are also by Shippey, there's no way he's going to lose. But this is the most useful, helpful, and readable book on the topic.

-- Orson Scott Card
28 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars If you are like me, a person that cannot get enough Tolkien
Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2018
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I have read this book many times over. If you are like me, a person that cannot get enough Tolkien, you will enjoy this book and the other one written by Shippey. They provide tremendous insight and understanding into how Tolkien wrote these books and where he got a lot of ideas from etc. For me personally, I found the chapters dealing with his other works to be far more interesting. The whole "Faerie" Lost Road angle I found to be mesmerizing. The idea that he had spent maybe so much his life engaged in sub-creative fantasy worlds that he wanted to believe there was a "Lost Road" to it was both poignant and sad to me. It is the same feeling I had after finishing The Lord of The Rings.
13 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Amazon-Kunde
5.0 out of 5 stars Umfassender Überblick über Tolkiens Entscheidungen..
Reviewed in Germany on March 7, 2022
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Sehr detailliert und gut begründet. Shippey ist ein ausgewiesener Tolkien Experte. Gut lesbar und verständlich.
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Ufficio Tecnico VB
5.0 out of 5 stars ben fatto
Reviewed in Italy on January 25, 2021
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qualita semplice. non mi lamento
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todd whelan
5.0 out of 5 stars A Book to help change the course of the future
Reviewed in Canada on February 27, 2019
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I think this is an important piece of literature for not only understanding the Lord of the Rings better, but to understand the conditions of life and of the problem of our modern era. Being that we are devoid of real fantasy, and knowing true good from evil. Perhaps the most important part of the book goes over the concept of what evil is to Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings. The One Ring represents the will to dominate all life. The Elven rings are the powers of nature, which when when Sauron has the One then he can control the three, nature herself. Why is it that in today's modern society with an enormous amount of material wealth, suicide rates and depression are skyrocketing, the value of money precede the value of human worth (let's not be shy about that fact), and there are all the ever more calls for "Progress" in whatever fashion. This Progress is the Machine of Sauron, the "mind of metal and wheels" of Saruman. Saruman depicts our governments whether being Liberal or Conservative. They all cast the same entrapping net for more power and control. One Order. One government. One Dark Tower of Barad Dûr to darken all the lands and people within its grasp. I'm not saying a libertarian politics is exactly the solution. But that it is spiritual in nature. And desire for a simple life which we have totally forgotten and left behind. "Progress" won the war of the 20th century. No one won those wars except those in the Dark Tower. It is time to counteract Sauron and every desire he wishes upon us.
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James Brydon
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating insights into Tolkien's creation of Middle-Earth
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 28, 2015
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I should, in the interests of transparency, declare an interest before proceeding to review this wonderful book.

Back in the mists of time, while I was an undergraduate at Leeds University, Professor Tom Shippey was my tutor and had the thankless task of trying to guide me through the beauties and mysteries of Old English and Old Icelandic literature. His lectures were marvellous: engaging, entertaining and highly memorable, and a lot of my friends studying completely different subjects used to file in for his weekly performance.

This book picks up where his lectures left off. Shippey has been a lifelong admirer of J R R Tolkien's work: not just 'The Lord of the Rings' and associated books, but also his researches in the fields of medieval literature and comparative philology. As far as Tolkien was concerned there was no significant gulf between the two spheres. He initially started writing about Middle-Earth to create a world to set the different languages that he had created.

The works were deeply rooted in Tolkien's own background. Though born in South Africa, he passed most of his childhood in Warwickshire, living in the suburbs of Birmingham. This is reflected in the landscape of The Shire. There are, of course, some startling, but deliberate, anachronisms. While Middle-Earth equates to a late middle ages, the hobbits love tobacco, and while lost in the wilderness Sam Gamgee tries to convince Smeagol/Gollum about the wonders of the potato, or 'taters' as he puts it. Tolkien himself, like Sam and Pippin, was known to be partial to a few pints of strong beer while he sucked away at his pipe.

Professor Shippey takes the reader in fascinating, though never overpowering, detail to show how Tolkien applied his wealth of learning to endow his novels with layer after layer of historical references, all of which add to the verisimilitude. Each of the different races encountered in 'The Lord of the Rings' have distinct but linguistically plausible languages which offer hints to a prior history. Their names resonate with philological clues. For instance, the language and history of the people of Rohan are modelled on those of the Anglo Saxons, while the dwarves' language shows deep traces of Old Norse.

Professor Shippey also offers a fascinating comparison between Denethor, Steward of Gondor, and Theoden, King of Rohan. The former appears the more imposing of the two, though he is merely holding the throne in trust against the return of the king. Theoden, while initially seen as frail and in thrall to his fay counsellor Grima, is the genuine article: a king in his own right and scion of a noble house, and he dies heroically, slain in battle surrounded by his men. Denethor, on the other hand, all but surrenders and chooses self-immolation rather than seeing the conflict through to its conclusion.

Perhaps this work is more particularly aimed at students of medieval literature rather than the mainstream Tolkien fans, but it is utterly enthralling.
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LouisaBalata
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it
Reviewed in France on July 11, 2015
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If you want a fascinating study on the linguistical and mythological themes of Tolkien's work, there you have it. Even if you don't really like Tolkien (or especially if you don't ?) this shows the incredible thought and academical knowledge more or less consciously used for the pure enjoyment of readers in a fantasy book that influenced so many ...
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