Simon Tolkien

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Simon Tolkien
Born
Simon Mario Reuel Tolkien

(1959-01-12) 12 January 1959 (age 64)
Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Alma mater Trinity College, Oxford
Occupation(s)Novelist, barrister
Spouses
Tracy Steinberg
​
(m. 1984)​
Children2
Parents

Simon Mario Reuel Tolkien (born 12 January 1959) is a British novelist and former barrister. He is the grandson of J. R. R. Tolkien, and the eldest child of Christopher Tolkien.

Contents

Biography

Simon was born in Oxford on 12 January 1959, the only child of Christopher Tolkien and his first wife, Faith Faulconbridge. His parents separated when he was five years old and he grew up with his mother. He was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford and then Downside School. He studied modern history at Trinity College, Oxford, after which he embarked on a fifteen-year career as a criminal lawyer. He became a barrister in 1994.

In 1984, he married Tracy Steinberg, who was born in 1962. She is Jewish. [1] Tracy owned and operated a vintage clothing store in Chelsea, London, called Steinberg & Tolkien, which shut in September 2007. [2] [3] [4] [5] They have two children, a son Nicholas and a daughter Anna. Nicholas is a playwright and director [6] who debuted with his first play Terezin in June 2017. [7]

Tolkien currently lives in southern California with his wife Tracy. [2]

Writings

In January 2000, he began writing fiction. [2] His first novel, which he has described as a black comedy, was not accepted for publication. His second novel, a courtroom drama, was published in the United States as The Final Witness in 2002 and in the United Kingdom as The Stepmother in 2003. [3] [8] [9] His second published work, The Inheritance (the first of a trilogy featuring Inspector Trave of the Oxfordshire Criminal Investigation Department), was published in 2010. [10] The second book of the Inspector Trave trilogy, The King of Diamonds, was published in 2011. [11] The third and final book in the trilogy, Orders from Berlin, was published in 2012. [12]

His 2016 novel, No Man's Land: a Novel, was published concurrent with the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme; the middle third of the novel is set in that months-long World War I battle. The novel follows the life of a poor English child and young adult (Adam Raine), beginning with episodes of labour unrest in London and on to the strikes in coal mining communities, class distinctions, and home front experiences of World War I. Simon Tolkien acknowledges that the experiences of Adam Raine only superficially resemble those faced by his grandfather (J. R. R. Tolkien) in the same large long battle of the war, but he wanted to write something that in part paid tribute to his grandfather's pivotal war experience as a young man, only a few years older than the age of the protagonist of No Man's Land. [13]

Reaction to filmed versions of J. R. R. Tolkien's works

Simon Tolkien disagreed with the policy of his grandfather's estate in regard to The Lord of the Rings films. When Christopher Tolkien issued a statement that the "Tolkien estate would be best advised to avoid any specific association with the films", [14] Simon Tolkien broke ranks, offering to cooperate with the filmmakers, stating, "It was my view that we take a much more positive line on the film and that was overruled by my father." [15] Following up a 2001 interview with the Independent, Simon in 2003 gave interviews to the Daily Telegraph and other media in which he discussed his strained relationship with his father, describing it as a permanent breach; [16] however, they subsequently reconciled. [2]

As of 2022, he is a consultant on the Amazon TV series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power . [17]

Bibliography

Inspector Trave novels

Other works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. R. R. Tolkien</span> English writer and philologist (1892–1973)

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Tolkien</span> British book editor, son of J. R. R. Tolkien

Christopher John Reuel Tolkien was an English and naturalised French academic editor. The son of author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien edited much of his father's posthumously published work, including The Silmarillion and the 12-volume series The History of Middle-Earth. Tolkien also drew the original maps for his father's The Lord of the Rings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Bombadil</span> Middle-earth character

Tom Bombadil is a character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He first appeared in print in a 1934 poem called "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", which also included The Lord of the Rings characters Goldberry, Old Man Willow and the Barrow-wight, from whom he rescues the hobbits. They were not then explicitly part of the older legends that became The Silmarillion, and are not mentioned in The Hobbit.

The Rings of Power are magical artefacts in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, most prominently in his high fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. The One Ring first appeared as a plot device, a magic ring in Tolkien's children's fantasy novel, The Hobbit; Tolkien later gave it a backstory and much greater power. He added nineteen other Great Rings, also conferring powers such as invisibility, that it could control, including the Three Rings of the Elves, Seven Rings for the Dwarves, and Nine for Men. He stated that there were in addition many lesser rings with minor powers. A key story element in The Lord of the Rings is the addictive power of the One Ring, made secretly by the Dark Lord Sauron; the Nine Rings enslave their bearers as the Nazgûl (Ringwraiths), Sauron's most deadly servants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Shippey</span> British medievalist (born 1943)

Thomas Alan Shippey is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien about whom he has written several books and many scholarly papers. His book The Road to Middle-Earth has been called "the single best thing written on Tolkien".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Howe (illustrator)</span> Canadian illustrator, best known for his artwork of J. R. R. Tolkiens Middle-earth

John Howe is a Canadian book illustrator and conceptual designer, best-known for his artwork of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. One year after graduating from high school, he studied in a college in Strasbourg, France, then at the École des arts décoratifs in the same town.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Salo</span> American linguist

David Salo is an American linguist who worked on the languages of J. R. R. Tolkien for the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies, expanding the languages by building on vocabulary already known from published works, and defining some languages that previously had a very small published vocabulary.

Tolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth legendarium which includes The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. The concept of Tolkien fandom as a specific type of fan subculture sprang up in the United States in the 1960s, in the context of the hippie movement, to the dismay of the author, who talked of "my deplorable cultus".

The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have served as the inspiration to painters, musicians, film-makers and writers, to such an extent that he is sometimes seen as the "father" of the entire genre of high fantasy.

Do not laugh! But once upon a time I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic to the level of romantic fairy-story... The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolkien Estate</span> Legal body managing estate of J.R.R Tolkien

The Tolkien Estate is the legal body which manages the property of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, including the copyright for most of his works. The individual copyrights have for the most part been assigned by the estate to subsidiary entities such as the J. R. R. Tolkien Discretionary Settlement and the Tolkien charitable trust. The various holdings of the Tolkien family, including the estate, have been organized under The Tolkien Company, the directors of which were Christopher Tolkien until August 2017 and his wife Baillie Tolkien, and J. R. R. Tolkien's grandson Michael George Tolkien. The executors of the estate proper were Christopher Tolkien, who was sole literary executor, and, Cathleen Blackburn of Maier Blackburn, who has been the estate's solicitor for many years.

<i>The Tolkien Reader</i>

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, together with one additional piece and introductory material. It was published in 1966 by Ballantine Books in the USA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolkien family</span> English family of German origin

The Tolkien family is an English family of German descent whose best-known member is J. R. R. Tolkien, Oxford academic and author of the fantasy books The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

<i>Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings</i> 1969 literary criticism by Lin Carter

Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings, alternatively subtitled A joyous exploration of Tolkien's classic trilogy and of the glorious tradition from which it grew is a 1969 non-scholarly study of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien by the science fiction author Lin Carter. The original version of the book was among the earliest full-length critical works devoted to Tolkien's fantasies, and the first to attempt to set his writings in the context of the history of fantasy.

J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, drew on a wide array of influences including language, Christianity, mythology, archaeology, ancient and modern literature, and personal experience. He was inspired primarily by his profession, philology; his work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and he acknowledged its importance to his writings.

Faramir is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. He is introduced as the younger brother of Boromir of the Fellowship of the Ring and second son of Denethor, the Steward of Gondor. Faramir enters the narrative in The Two Towers, where, upon meeting Frodo Baggins, he is presented with a temptation to take possession of the One Ring. In The Return of the King, he leads the forces of Gondor in the War of the Ring, coming near to death, succeeds his father as Steward, and wins the love of Éowyn, lady of the royal house of Rohan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middle-earth</span> Continent in Tolkiens legendarium

Middle-earth is the setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the Miðgarðr of Norse mythology and Middangeard in Old English works, including Beowulf. Middle-earth is the human-inhabited world, that is, the central continent of the Earth, in Tolkien's imagined mythological past. Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, are set entirely in Middle-earth. "Middle-earth" has also become a short-hand term for Tolkien's legendarium, his large body of fantasy writings, and for the entirety of his fictional world.

Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, and one of the protagonists in The Lord of the Rings. Frodo is a hobbit of the Shire who inherits the One Ring from his cousin Bilbo Baggins, described familiarly as "uncle", and undertakes the quest to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom in Mordor. He is mentioned in Tolkien's posthumously published works, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolkien's artwork</span> Artwork by J. R. R. Tolkien

Tolkien's artwork was a key element of his creativity from the time when he began to write fiction. The philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien prepared a wide variety of materials to support his fiction, including illustrations for his Middle-earth fantasy books, facsimile artefacts, more or less "picturesque" maps, calligraphy, and sketches and paintings from life. Some of his artworks combined several of these elements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jared Lobdell</span> American historian

Charles Jared Lobdell was an American author and one of the first Tolkien scholars. He is best known for some thirty academic books on American history and the Inklings including J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Williams.

References

  1. ↑ "J.R.R. Tolkien's Jewish Great-Grandson Has A Play On Terezin". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 6 June 2017. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Hough, Andrew (18 November 2012). "Simon Tolkien: J R R Tolkien's grandson admits Lord of the Rings trauma". The Sunday Telegraph . Retrieved 15 December 2012.
  3. 1 2 Drout, Michael D. C. (6 November 2006). J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. Routledge. ISBN   1135880344.
  4. ↑ David Thomas (24 February 2003). "A leaf torn from the family tree". The Daily Telegraph.
  5. ↑ Susanna Lau (4 August 2007). "The Classic Fat Cat Tale" . Retrieved 16 December 2014.
  6. ↑ Sandy Brawarsky (6 June 2017). "J.R.R. Tolkien's Jewish Great-Grandson Has A Play On Terezin". The Times of Israel .
  7. ↑ Michael Kaminer (26 June 2017). "A Tolkien Takes on the Holocaust". The Forward .
  8. ↑ "Simon Tolkien". BBC News. 17 December 2003. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
  9. ↑ Flynn, Gillian (17 December 2003). "Final Witness". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved 18 July 2009.
  10. ↑ "From Mordor to murder: Another Tolkien hits the books". 18 April 2010 – via tribunedigital-chicagotribune.
  11. ↑ "Book review: The King of Diamonds, by Simon Tolkien". The Dallas Morning News.
  12. ↑ "Fiction Book Review: Orders from Berlin by Simon Tolkien". Publishers Weekly .
  13. 1 2 Flood, Alison (1 July 2016). "JRR Tolkien's war experiences inspire novel by his grandson". The Guardian .
  14. ↑ Duncan, Hugo (9 December 2003). "From Mold to Middle Earth". Daily Post. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
  15. ↑ Susman, Gary (10 December 2001). "Tolkien Opposition". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
  16. ↑ Thomas, David (24 February 2003). "J R R Tolkien's grandson 'cut off from literary inheritance'". The Sunday Telegraph . Retrieved 23 April 2010.
  17. ↑ Coggan, Devan (19 July 2022). "How Simon Tolkien helped guide The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved 19 July 2022.
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