At long last, we finally… really this time… begin The Lord of the Rings! In this episode, we introduce the novel (not a trilogy) with the epic story of its composition and publication. Almost immediately after The Hobbit was published, Tolkien’s publishers demanded a sequel; but the road from idea to publication took the Professor seventeen long years, with more twists and turns than a goblin-tunnel. Plus, the story of the Professor’s appearance at a hobbit-themed dinner in 1958 in a combined Tolkien Quote of the Day / Tolkien Fun Fact.
This week’s episode is sponsored by Emily Austin Design. Visit Emily at her website, emilyaustindesign.com, and use the discount code BREE to get 10% off any website purchases through September 30! For more information, visit Emily Austin Design on Facebook, Instagram, and Etsy.
For information about Luke Shelton’s PhD research on how young readers interpret The Lord of the Rings, see his blog https://luke-shelton.com/phd-research/ or his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/YoungReadersLOTR/. Older readers may share their experiences at the Tolkien Experience Project on Luke’s website here, or on Facebook here.
Recommended Reading:
Carpenter, Humphrey. J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography (Houghton Mifflin, paperback)
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Mariner Books, paperback)
Just got to this episode, and I’d like to share my Tolkien story, as somebody here may actually care.
In third grade, my dad forced me to read LotR. Long story short, I hated it (I was a disgrace to humankind). A few years later, over the course of which I read the Hobbit, I came back to it, trudged through the first two books, and my dad was happy we could watch the first movie, and I’d finally read a classic. It was getting somewhat interesting, but within the first three sentences I was absolutely and utterly hooked and sped through the next four books and proceeded to read every Tolkien book I could find, including the Silmarillion at age 9. Ish. Now I’m learning Sindarin (help with 3rd person sing. Verb conjugation Shawn) and Quenya, though the latter is still under development.
My mother took a cleverer approach. I’d already found The Hobbit. I was eight or so. I was very proud to have read a proper book, not a picture-book. We had an odd volume of The Two Towers (in the first edition, I wish I still had that!). Anyway she said, it’s a bit scary but you might like this chapter. It was ‘Flotsam and Jetsam’. Gone!