Established | 6 November 1969 |
---|---|
Founder | Vera Chapman |
Legal status | Educational charity |
Focus | Education |
Location |
|
Region served | Global |
President | J. R. R. Tolkien (in perpetuo) |
Vice-President | Priscilla Tolkien (in perpetuo) |
Chair | Shaun Gunner |
Affiliations | Alliance of Literary Societies |
Website | www |
The Tolkien Society is an educational charity and literary society devoted to the study and promotion of the life and works of the author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien. [1] [2]
It began informally in 1969, and held its inaugural meeting in 1970. It holds five annual events, namely a Birthday Toast, a Tolkien Reading Day, an AGM and Springmoot, a Seminar, and the Oxonmoot conference-and-convention.
The society publishes a bulletin named Amon Hen, and a peer-reviewed journal, Mallorn. It has local groups called "smials", one of which, the Cambridge Tolkien Society, publishes the open access journal Anor.
In the November 1969 issue of The Middle Earthworm, a letters of comment fanzine mainly aimed at British members of the Tolkien Society of America, Vera Chapman announced "if not quite the birth, at least the hopeful conception of a Tolkien Society of Britain". [T 1] This was supplemented by a personal column by Chapman in the New Statesman published on 7 November which ran "Tolkien Society of Britain — write Belladonna Took [Chapman's pseudonym], c/o Chapman, 21 Harrington House, Stanhope St. London NW1". [T 1] Since this would have hit news-stands a day before publication, the Tolkien Society's informal beginning has been placed at Thursday 6 November 1969. [T 1]
The Tolkien Society gradually took shape over the following years. December 1969 saw the publication of Belladonna's Broadsheet, which after three issues was replaced by The Mallorn in October 1970. This was conceived as a quarterly publication, and the first issue was joined by The Tolkien Society Bulletin, which was to be produced on a six-weekly basis. [T 1] The Society's official bulletin was replaced in January 1972 with Anduril, but was quickly supplanted by Henneth Annûn after three issues (the first had been numbered 0, and it continued independently until issue number 7). This new publication changed its name to Amon Hen with the second issue, seemingly for no particular reason. [T 1] It, together with Mallorn (the article having been dropped), are still published by the Tolkien Society.
The "inaugural" meeting of the Tolkien Society was hosted by the Hobbit Society of University College London on 29 January 1970, where the name of the new society was discussed and the first committee was appointed. [T 1] A constitution was considered at the first general meeting of the Tolkien Society on 20 November 1970 at UCL, but was ultimately rejected. [T 1] The Tolkien Society did not become a legal entity until a constitution was finally ratified on 15 January 1972. [T 1] It later obtained charitable status in England and Wales on 7 July 1977. [3]
An AGM has been held each year since 1972, and since 1973 has featured a talk from a guest speaker. [T 1] It is one of the three main annual Tolkien Society events, the largest and most popular being "Oxonmoot". In the December 1973 issue of the fanzine Nazgul, contributor John Abbot asked, "[w]hat do you think of the idea of Oxford Moot this year?" [T 1] The 1974 AGM approved the idea, and the first Oxonmoot met at The Welsh Pony on George Street, later that year between 13–15 September. [T 1] The first (near-)annual Tolkien Society "workshop" was held on 22 March 1986, morphing into the "Tolkien Society Seminar" from 1989 onwards. [T 2] The more informal "Summermoot" was held on an irregular basis in the 1980s and 1990s, occasionally hosted by Joanna Tolkien and Hugh Baker at their farm in Wales. [4] According to their son (and Tolkien's great-grandson) Royd Tolkien:
As a family, we’ve always been involved with The Tolkien Society and when I was a kid they used to come up to our small farm in Wales for Summer Moots. They’d dress up as characters, camp in the field, sword fight, let off homemade fireworks and have huge campfires. The first awareness of the legacy came from those fun times. [5]
The Tolkien Society has organized major conferences to celebrate significant Tolkienian anniversaries. "The J. R. R. Tolkien Centenary Conference" at Keble College, Oxford, marked one-hundred years since Tolkien's birth in 1992. [1] "Tolkien 2005: The Ring Goes Ever On" celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of The Lord of the Rings at Aston University, Birmingham. [6] "The Return of the Ring: Celebrating Tolkien in 2012" marked seventy-five years since the publication of The Hobbit at Loughborough University, and received a special video message from director Peter Jackson and artists John Howe and Alan Lee. [7]
Chapman first contacted J. R. R. Tolkien on behalf of the Tolkien Society at the suggestion of Joy Hill, Tolkien's secretary during the 1960s. On 1 May 1970 she wrote Tolkien a letter introducing the Society and its aims. [T 1] When it was announced that Tolkien had been awarded a CBE in the New Year's Honours, the Society sent Tolkien a telegram on his eightieth birthday on 3 January 1972, a gift of tobacco in a green china jar, and a congratulatory note; on 6 February, he replied thanking the Society. [T 1]
Later that year, on 27 June, Chapman met Tolkien at a sherry party hosted by Tolkien's publishers, Allen & Unwin, and Tolkien agreed to become the Society's honorary president. [T 1] Tolkien died the following year, and Chapman offered the presidency to his son Christopher. He wrote back suggesting that his father could remain president in perpetuity. This was agreed at the following Annual General Meeting in 1974. [T 1]
The Tolkien Society currently organizes five events on an annual basis:
Membership of the Tolkien Society includes a subscription to the bulletin Amon Hen and journal Mallorn. The former is published six times a year, while the latter is published once a year. Mallorn tends to be more scholarly than Amon Hen, although the range of content has varied over the years. Prominent contributors include Christopher Tolkien, Priscilla Tolkien, and Tom Shippey. [T 6] [T 7]
Quettar was the bulletin of the Linguistic Fellowship of The Tolkien Society between 1980 and 1995, running for forty-nine issues before being wound up. [T 8]
The Tolkien Society has also published a number of one-off publications, including the proceedings of the 1992 and 2005 conferences. [T 9] Its "Peter Roe" series of books are published irregularly, and tend to print proceedings of seminars and talks by guest speakers. [T 10]
Local groups affiliated to the Tolkien Society are known as "smials", the name used for hobbit-holes in The Lord of the Rings . [T 11] One smial at the University of Cambridge, known as the "Cambridge Tolkien Society" and "Minas Tirith", has published the open access journal Anor since the 1980s. [15] [T 12]
The Tolkien to the World programme raises funds to send Tolkien books to schools and libraries across the world. Its aim is "to work towards a situation where everyone in the world has access to Tolkien’s principal works of fiction". [T 13]
The Tolkien Society Archive maintains a large number of Tolkien books and journals together with a collection of ephemera such as press clippings and responses (both commercial and creative) to Tolkien which might not otherwise be preserved. [T 14]
The Tolkien Society has funded blue plaques at places of significance in Tolkien's life. [T 15] These include:
The 1992 Centenary Conference, organized by the Tolkien Society and the Mythopoeic Society, sponsored a memorial to Tolkien in Oxford University Parks. This involved the installation of a bench by the River Cherwell with an accompanying plaque and the planting of two trees representing Telperion and Laurelin from The Silmarillion . [T 16]
The Tolkien Society Awards were established in 2014 to "recognise excellence in the fields of Tolkien scholarship and fandom". The awards are held annually and announced at the Annual Dinner during the Society's AGM and Springmoot weekend. [19] Past winners include authors Christopher Tolkien, Tom Shippey, Dimitra Fimi, John Garth, and artist Jenny Dolfen. [T 17]
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.
Hobbits are a fictional race of people in the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien. About half average human height, Tolkien presented hobbits as a variety of humanity, or close relatives thereof. Occasionally known as halflings in Tolkien's writings, they live barefooted, and traditionally dwell in homely underground houses which have windows, built into the sides of hills, though others live in houses. Their feet have naturally tough leathery soles and are covered on top with curly hair.
Gondor is a fictional kingdom in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, described as the greatest realm of Men in the west of Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age. The third volume of The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, is largely concerned with the events in Gondor during the War of the Ring and with the restoration of the realm afterward. The history of the kingdom is outlined in the appendices of the book.
Bag End is the underground dwelling of the Hobbits Bilbo and Frodo Baggins in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. From there, both Bilbo and Frodo set out on their adventures, and both return there, for a while. As such, Bag End represents the familiar, safe, comfortable place which is the antithesis of the dangerous places that they visit. It forms one end of the main story arcs in the novels, and since the Hobbits return there, it also forms an end point in the story circle in each case.
"The Scouring of the Shire" is the penultimate chapter of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy The Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship hobbits, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, return home to the Shire to find that it is under the brutal control of ruffians and their leader "Sharkey", revealed to be the Wizard Saruman. The ruffians have despoiled the Shire, cutting down trees and destroying old houses, as well as replacing the old mill with a larger one full of machinery which pollutes the air and the water. The hobbits rouse the Shire to rebellion, lead their fellow hobbits to victory in the Battle of Bywater, and end Saruman's rule.
Mr. Bliss is a children's picture book by J. R. R. Tolkien, published posthumously in book form in 1982. One of Tolkien's least-known short works, it tells the story of Mr. Bliss and his first ride in his new motor-car. Many adventures follow: encounters with bears, angry neighbours, irate shopkeepers, and assorted collisions.
The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have generated a body of research covering many aspects of his fantasy writings. These encompass The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, along with his legendarium that remained unpublished until after his death, and his constructed languages, especially the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin. Scholars from different disciplines have examined the linguistic and literary origins of Middle-earth, and have explored many aspects of his writings from Christianity to feminism and race.
The Shire Country Park is a country park in the south of Birmingham, England, taking its name from Tolkien's The Shire.
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.
Jeffrey Patrick Murray was an American fantasy artist and author best known for his illustrations of works by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. His paintings, illustrations, stories, poems, and essays appear regularly in Tolkien and Inklings-oriented publications and in Catholic publications worldwide. He was Artist-in-Residence for the St. Austin Review, and was artist guest of honor at the 2006 Gathering of the Fellowship in Toronto along with Ted Nasmith. He was nominated for an Imperishable Flame award in 2006, and his work has been exhibited in the USA, Canada, the UK, and the Netherlands.
The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in The Lord of the Rings and other works. The Shire is an inland area settled exclusively by hobbits, the Shire-folk, largely sheltered from the goings-on in the rest of Middle-earth. It is in the northwest of the continent, in the region of Eriador and the Kingdom of Arnor.
The Fellowship of the Ring is the first of three volumes of the epic novel The Lord of the Rings by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien; it is followed by The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The action takes place in the fictional universe of Middle-earth. The first edition was published on 29 July 1954 in the United Kingdom, and consists of a foreword in which the author discusses the writing of The Lord of the Rings, a prologue titled "Concerning Hobbits, and other matters", and the main narrative divided into two "books".
Tolkienmoot is an annual convention run by the Eä Tolkien Society created for scholars, gamers, and enthusiasts of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. It began under the name of Merpcon in 2005. Always a convention focused on Tolkien scholarly discussion and gaming in Middle-earth, its name was changed in 2009 as the venue expanded. The convention was founded by Hawke Robinson and others.
The plants in Middle-earth, the fictional world devised by J. R. R. Tolkien, are a mixture of real plant species with fictional ones. Middle-earth was intended to represent the real world in an imagined past, and in many respects its natural history is realistic.
Glen GoodKnight (1941–2010) was the founder of the Mythopoeic Society and the editor of its journal, Mythlore between 1970 and 1998; in that time the publication grew from being a fan magazine to a peer-reviewed academic journal. He was an expert on and collector of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and his fellow Inklings, C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams.
Oxonmoot is a conference and fan convention organized by The Tolkien Society devoted to celebrate and study the life and works of J. R. R. Tolkien. It takes place every year in Oxford, England, around 22 September, the date of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins's birthdays, also known as Hobbit Day.
The architecture in Middle-earth, J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world, is as varied as the Hobbit-holes of the Shire, the tree-houses of Lothlórien, the wooden halls of Rohan, and the stone dwellings and fortifications of Minas Tirith, capital of Gondor. Tolkien uses the architecture in each place, including its interior design, to provide clues to each people's character. The Hobbit Bilbo Baggins's cosy home, Bag End, described in his 1937 children's book The Hobbit, establishes the character of Hobbits as averse to travelling outside the Shire. In his fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings, Lothlórien demonstrates the close integration of the Elves with their natural environment. The King of Rohan's hall, Meduseld, indicates the Rohirrim's affinity with Anglo-Saxon culture, while Gondor's tall and beautiful stone architecture was described by Tolkien as "Byzantine". In contrast, the Dark Lord Sauron and the fallen Wizard Saruman's realms are damaged lands around tall dark towers.
Cornelis Blok (1934—2021), known as Cor, was a Dutch artist and art history teacher. He became well-known as a Tolkien illustrator; Tolkien purchased one of his paintings.
The Tolkien Society Awards, established in 2014, are presented annually by The Tolkien Society to "recognise excellence in the fields of Tolkien scholarship and fandom". The awards are announced at the Annual Dinner during the Society's AGM and Springmoot weekend.