Douglas A. Anderson

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Douglas A. Anderson
Born
Douglas Allen Anderson

(1959-12-30) December 30, 1959 (age 65)
OccupationAmerican writer

Douglas Allen Anderson (born December 30, 1959) is an American writer and editor on the subjects of fantasy and medieval literature, specializing in textual analysis of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. His 1988 edition of Tolkien's children's book The Hobbit , The Annotated Hobbit , won him a Mythopoeic Award for scholarship.

Contents

Biography

Douglas Anderson was born in Valparaiso, Indiana, United States.[ citation needed ] After becoming friends with him in Oxford in 1978, he assisted Humphrey Carpenter with work on the latter's biography of Auden, and with The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien . [1]

His first published book was The Annotated Hobbit (1988), which grew out of a study of J. R. R. Tolkien's revisions to the various editions of The Hobbit following the publication of The Lord of the Rings . The book consisted of Anderson's detailed explanations alongside Tolkien's text. A revised and illustrated edition was published in 2002. [2]

Anderson's textual studies of The Lord of the Rings are the core of the Houghton Mifflin revised American edition of 1987, incorporating various changes made to British editions at Tolkien's direction. He contributed a "Note on the Text" discussing the history of these changes, which was subsequently incorporated into later editions with various minor revisions.

With Verlyn Flieger and Michael D. C. Drout, he is a founding editor of Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review; the first volume appeared in 2004. [3]

Anderson has edited modern editions of works by fantasy authors including Leonard Cline, Kenneth Morris, Evangeline Walton and William Hope Hodgson. [4] He is a visiting lecturer at Signum University. [4] Aside from his editing and Tolkien studies, he is a bookseller, having worked first in Ithaca, New York, and then in Indiana. [2] He runs the publishing business Nodens Books, which seeks to revive the work of forgotten authors. [4]

Awards and distinctions

The Annotated Hobbit won the 1990 Mythopoeic Award for scholarship. [5]

Books

Written
Edited

Related Research Articles

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The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction. The book is recognized as a classic in children's literature and is one of the best-selling books of all time, with over 100 million copies sold.

<i>The History of Middle-earth</i> Book series on Tolkiens legendarium edited by Christopher Tolkien

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<i>The Complete Guide to Middle-earth</i> Reference book for Tolkiens fictional setting

The Complete Guide to Middle-earth: from The Hobbit to The Silmarillion is a reference book for J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, compiled and edited by Robert Foster. It was first published in 1971 under the title A Guide to Middle-earth. A revised and enlarged edition under the title The Complete Guide to Middle-earth was published in 1978. It received a third edition in 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mythopoeic Awards</span> Literary award

The Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given annually for outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas. Established by the Mythopoeic Society in 1971, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award is given for "fiction in the spirit of the Inklings", and the Scholarship Award for non-fiction work. The award is a statuette of a seated lion, with a plaque on the base. It has drawn resemblance to, and is often called, the "Aslan".

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the real-world history and notable fictional elements of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy universe. It covers materials created by Tolkien; the works on his unpublished manuscripts, by his son Christopher Tolkien; and films, games and other media created by other people.

The term Middle-earth canon, also called Tolkien's canon, is used for the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien regarding Middle-earth as a whole. The term is also used in Tolkien fandom to promote, discuss and debate the idea of a consistent fictional canon within a given subset of Tolkien's writings.

Carl Franklin Hostetter is a Tolkien scholar and NASA computer scientist. He has edited and annotated many of J. R. R. Tolkien's linguistic writings, publishing them in Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon, and edited collections of Middle-earth writings by scholars and by Tolkien himself.

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<i>The Lord of the Rings: A Readers Companion</i>

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<i>Tolkien Studies</i> Academic journal

Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review is an academic journal founded in 2004 publishing papers on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. The journal's founding editors are Douglas A. Anderson, Michael D. C. Drout, and Verlyn Flieger, and the current editors are Michael D. C. Drout, Verlyn Flieger, and David Bratman. It states that it is the first scholarly journal published by an academic press in the area of Tolkien research.

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<i>The Annotated Hobbit</i> Douglas A. Andersons annotated version from the novel by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Annotated Hobbit: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is an edition of J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit with a commentary by Douglas A. Anderson. It was first published in 1988 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first American publication of The Hobbit, and by Unwin Hyman of London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard C. West</span> American librarian and Tolkien scholar (1944–2020)

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<i>Tolkiens Art: A Mythology for England</i> 1979 book by Jane Chance

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References

  1. Anderson, Douglas A. (2005). "Humphrey Carpenter 1946-2005". Tolkien Studies : 223.
  2. 1 2 "Douglas A. Anderson". Houghton Mifflin. Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. Retrieved July 3, 2021.
  3. "Volume 1, 2004". Tolkien Studies. Retrieved July 3, 2021. The founding editors are Douglas A. Anderson (The Annotated Hobbit), Michael D. C. Drout (Beowulf and the Critics), and Verlyn Flieger (Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World).
  4. 1 2 3 "Douglas A. Anderson Visiting Lecturer". Signum University . Retrieved July 3, 2021.
  5. "Mythopoeic Scholarship Award: Inklings Studies". Mythopoeic Society . Retrieved July 3, 2021.

Sources