Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth at the Famed Bodleian Libraries

Editor's Note: A writer for SeniorWomen.com, Julia Sneden, presented me with the first volume of the The Lord of the Rings at a particularly difficult time in my life many decades ago as a way to engage and distract me. England is a distant destination but, luckily, this exhibit will be coming to the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City from 25 January to 12 May 2019. In late 2019, the Bodleian Libraries and Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF), Paris will collaborate on the largest Tolkien exhibition to be held in France. Bodleian Library, Oxford

Credit: blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

We have used the Bodleian Libraries Shop for a number of small presents to family over the past few years; it is, in itself, a journey through Tolkien and it's other exhibits; international shipping has become increasingly expensive, however. However, Amazon and The Tolkien Society carry some of the items.

Oxford University's Bodleian Libraries present the most extensive collection of materials related to J.R.R. Tolkien known to have been gathered together for public display since the 1950s.

Illustration by J.R.R.Tolkien of the Hobbit dust jacket Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth (through 28 October 2018) includes over 200 items — approximately half of which have never been displayed before — from Bodleian's extensive Tolkien Archive and Marquette University's Tolkien Collection, as well as from important private collections.

This seminal exhibition is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to see this magnitude of Tolkien-related materials together. The various manuscripts, artworks, maps, letters and artefacts have been gathered from the UK, the US and France, and many will be reunited in Oxford for the first time since the death of J.R.R.Tolkien more than 40 years ago, in a city where Tolkien spent most of his adult life, first as a student of classics in 1911, and eventually as a professor of English language and literature.

Tolkien is one of the world's best-loved authors, with his works regularly appearing in polls of the top 100 greatest British novels of all time. The Hobbit has sold over 100 million copies worldwide, while The Lord of the Rings has sold over 150 million copies, and both works have been translated into over fifty languages.

Photograph of J.R.R.Tolkien stood by a tree in the Oxford Botanical Gardens Curated by Bodleian's Tolkien Archivist, Catherine McIlwaine, the exhibition examines the full breadth of Tolkien's unique literary imagination, from his creation of Middle-earth — the imagined world where The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbitare set — to his life and work as an artist, poet, medievalist and scholar of languages. It will examine the scholarly, literary, creative and domestic worlds that influenced Tolkien as an author and artist, taking visitors beyond what they may already know about this extraordinary cultural figure.

The numerous items exploring the vast spectrum of Tolkien's creative and scholarly output range from his early abstract paintings in The Book of Ishness to the touching tales he wrote for his children. Original manuscripts of his popular classics sit alongside lesser-known and posthumous works and materials, some of which will be on public display for the very first time. The spectacular range of objects on display navigates visitors around various areas of interest including Tolkien's creation of language, his childhood and student days, his career as a scholar of literature, and his family life as a husband and father.

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Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth at the Famed Bodleian Libraries

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