Smith Of Wootton Major
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Smith Of Wootton Major
''Smith of Wootton Major'', first published in 1967, is a novella by J. R. R. Tolkien. Background The book began as an attempt to explain the meaning of Faery by means of a story about a cook and his cake, and Tolkien originally thought to call it ''The Great Cake''. It was intended to be part of a preface by Tolkien to George MacDonald's famous fairy story '' The Golden Key''.H. Carpenter, ''J.R.R. Tolkien: a biography'', "Headington", p. 244. Tolkien's story grew to become a tale in its own right. The story was first published on 9 November 1967. It was first published in the United States on 23 November 1967 in the Christmas edition of ''Redbook'' magazine, but without the illustrations by Pauline Baynes that appeared in the published book. ''Smith of Wootton Major'' is not connected to the Middle-earth legendarium, except by the thematic "Faery" motif of the traveler who journeys to a land that lies beyond the normal world and is usually beyond the reach of mortals. (Smith ...
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Pauline Baynes
Pauline Diana Baynes (9 September 1922 – 1 August 2008) was an English illustrator, author and commercial artist. She contributed drawings and paintings to more than 200 books, mostly in the children's genre. She was the first illustrator of some of J. R. R. Tolkien's minor works and of C. S. Lewis's ''Chronicles of Narnia''. Early life Baynes was born on 9 September 1922 at 67 Brunswick Place, Hove, East Sussex, England.Eccleshare, Julia: Pauline Baynes; ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2005 - 2008''; Oxford University Press, 2008 Her father was Frederick William Wilberforce Baynes (1887 – 1967) and her mother was Jessie Harriet Maude Baynes, née Cunningham (''circa'' 1888 – 1958).Hooper, Walter: ''C. S. Lewis: a Complete Guide to his Life and Works''; Harper Collins, 1996; pp. 624 - 626 Her only sibling was her elder sister, Angela Mary Baynes. While she was still a baby, her family emigrated to India, where her father had been appointed a Commissi ...
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Valinor
Valinor ( Quenya'': Land of the Valar'') or the Blessed Realms is a fictional location in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the home of the immortal Valar on the continent of Aman, far to the west of Middle-earth; he used the name Aman mainly to mean Valinor. It included Eldamar, the land of the Elves, who as immortals were permitted to live in Valinor. Aman was known somewhat misleadingly as "the Undying Lands", but the land itself does not cause mortals to live forever., #156 to Father R. Murray, SJ, November 1954 However, only immortal beings were generally allowed to reside there. Exceptions were made for the surviving bearers of the One Ring: Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee, who dwelt there for a time, and the dwarf Gimli., "The Grey Havens", and Appendix B, entry for S.R. 1482 and 1541., #249 to Michael George Tolkien, October 1963 Scholars have described the similarity of Tolkien's myth of the attempt of Númenor to capture Aman to the biblical Tower of Babel and ...
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1967 Short Stories
Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and commercial relations (not diplomatic ones). ** Charlie Chaplin launches his last film, ''A Countess from Hong Kong'', in the UK. * January 6 – Vietnam War: USMC and ARVN troops launch ''Operation Deckhouse Five'' in the Mekong Delta. * January 8 – Vietnam War: Operation Cedar Falls starts. * January 13 – A military coup occurs in Togo under the leadership of Étienne Eyadema. * January 14 – The Human Be-In takes place in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; the event sets the stage for the Summer of Love. * January 15 ** Louis Leakey announces the discovery of pre-human fossils in Kenya; he names the species '' Kenyapithecus africanus''. ** American football: The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10 in the First AFL ...
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Fantasy Short Stories
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century, it has expanded further into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animations and video games. Fantasy is distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the respective absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these genres overlap. In popular culture, the fantasy genre predominantly features settings that emulate Earth, but with a sense of otherness. In its broadest sense, however, fantasy consists of works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians from ancient myths and legends to many recent and popular works. Traits Most fantasy uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Magic, magic practitio ...
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1967 Books
Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and commercial relations (not diplomatic ones). ** Charlie Chaplin launches his last film, '' A Countess from Hong Kong'', in the UK. * January 6 – Vietnam War: USMC and ARVN troops launch ''Operation Deckhouse Five'' in the Mekong Delta. * January 8 – Vietnam War: Operation Cedar Falls starts. * January 13 – A military coup occurs in Togo under the leadership of Étienne Eyadema. * January 14 – The Human Be-In takes place in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; the event sets the stage for the Summer of Love. * January 15 ** Louis Leakey announces the discovery of pre-human fossils in Kenya; he names the species '' Kenyapithecus africanus''. ** American football: The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10 in the Firs ...
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Books By J
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called a bo ...
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The Road To Middle-earth
''The Road to Middle-earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology'' is a scholarly study of the Middle-earth works of J. R. R. Tolkien written by Tom Shippey and first published in 1982. The book discusses Tolkien's philology, and then examines in turn the origins of ''The Hobbit'', ''The Lord of the Rings'', ''The Silmarillion'', and his minor works. An appendix discusses Tolkien's many sources. Two further editions extended and updated the work, including a discussion of Peter Jackson's film version of ''The Lord of the Rings''. The book's various versions, including new editions in 1993 and 2005, have been welcomed by Tolkien scholars and others as rigorous, convincing, and "the single best book written on Tolkien". Shippey won the 1984 '' Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies'' for the book. Book Background Tom Shippey is, as Tolkien was, a philologist. Early in his career he taught English at the University of Oxford, using the same syllabus as Tolki ...
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Verlyn Flieger
Verlyn Flieger (born 1933) is an author, editing, editor, and Professor Emerita in the Department of English at the University of Maryland, College Park, University of Maryland at College Park, where she taught courses in comparative mythology, medieval literature, and the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. She is well known as a Tolkien scholar, especially for her books ''Splintered Light'' and ''A Question of Time''. She has won the Mythopoeic Award, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award four times for her work on Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. Biography Flieger holds a master's degree (1972) and doctorate (1977) from The Catholic University of America, and has been associated with the University of Maryland since 1976. In 2012, retiring from teaching at Maryland, Flieger began teaching Arthurian legend, Arthurian studies online at Signum University. Her best-known books are ''Splintered Light, Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World'' (1983; revised edition, 2002), which argues ...
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Tales From The Perilous Realm
''The Tolkien Reader'' is an anthology of works by J. R. R. Tolkien. It includes a variety of short stories, poems, a play and some non-fiction. It compiles material previously published as three separate shorter books (''Tree and Leaf, Farmer Giles of Ham,'' and ''The Adventures of Tom Bombadil''), together with one additional piece and introductory material. It was published in 1966 by Ballantine Books in the USA. Most of these works appeared in journals, magazines, or books years before the publication of ''The Tolkien Reader''. The earliest published pieces are the poems "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late" and "The Hoard", both of which were first published in 1923. They were reprinted together with a variety of other poems in the book''The Adventures of Tom Bombadil'' in 1962, and the entire book was included in ''The Tolkien Reader'' in 1966. The section titled ''Tree and Leaf'' is also a reprint. It was published as a book bearing the same name in 1964, and consists o ...
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Leaf By Niggle
"Leaf by Niggle" is a short story written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1938–39 and first published in the '' Dublin Review'' in January 1945. It can be found, most notably, in Tolkien's book titled '' Tree and Leaf'', and in other places (including the collections '' The Tolkien Reader'', ''Poems & Stories'', ''A Tolkien Miscellany'', and '' Tales from the Perilous Realm''). This is notable because the book, consisting of a seminal essay called " On Fairy-Stories" and "Leaf by Niggle", offers the underlying philosophy (Creation and Sub-Creation, see below) of much of Tolkien's fantastical writings. "Leaf by Niggle" is often seen as an allegory of Tolkien's own creative process, and, to an extent, of his own life. Plot summary In this story, an artist, named Niggle, lives in a society that does not value art. Working only to please himself, he paints a canvas of a great Tree with a forest in the distance. He invests each and every leaf of his tree with obsessive attention to deta ...
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The Adventures Of Tom Bombadil
''The Adventures of Tom Bombadil'' is a 1962 collection of poetry by J. R. R. Tolkien. The book contains 16 poems, two of which feature Tom Bombadil, a character encountered by Frodo Baggins in ''The Lord of the Rings''. The rest of the poems are an assortment of bestiary verse and fairy tale rhyme. Three of the poems appear in ''The Lord of the Rings'' as well. The book is part of Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. The volume includes ''The Sea-Bell'', subtitled ''Frodos Dreme'', which W. H. Auden considered Tolkien's best poem. It is a piece of metrical and rhythmical complexity that recounts a journey to a strange land beyond the sea. Drawing on medieval 'dream vision' poetry and Irish ''immram'' poems, the piece is markedly melancholic and the final note is one of alienation and disillusion. The book was originally illustrated by Pauline Baynes and later by Roger Garland. The book, like the first edition of ''The Fellowship of the Ring'', is presented as if it is an actual ...
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Farmer Giles Of Ham
''Farmer Giles of Ham'' is a comic medieval fable written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1937 and published in 1949. The story describes the encounters between Farmer Giles and a wily dragon named Chrysophylax, and how Giles manages to use these to rise from humble beginnings to rival the king of the land. It is cheerfully anachronistic and light-hearted, set in Britain in an imaginary period of the Dark Ages, and featuring mythical creatures, medieval knights, and primitive firearms. It is only tangentially connected with the author's Middle-earth legendarium: both were originally intended as essays in "English mythology". The book was originally illustrated by Pauline Baynes. The story has appeared with other works by Tolkien in omnibus editions, including ''The Tolkien Reader'' and ''Tales from the Perilous Realm''. Tolkien dedicated ''Farmer Giles of Ham'' to Cyril Hackett Wilkinson (1888–1960), a don he knew at Oxford University. Tolkien gives the reason for this dedication ...
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