Tom Shippey

Further information: Tolkien research

Shippey's interest in Tolkien began when he was 14 years old and was lent a copy of The Hobbit . ^[11] Shippey comments on his interest in Tolkien that

Purely by accident, I followed in Tolkien's footsteps in several respects: as a schoolboy (we both went to King Edward's School, Birmingham), as rugby player (we both played for Old Edwardians), as a teacher at Oxford (I taught Old English for seven years at St. John's College, just overlapping with Tolkien's last years of retirement), and as Professor of English Language at Leeds (where I inherited Tolkien's chair and syllabus)." ^[12]

Both Shippey and J. R. R. Tolkien were professors at Leeds University, with offices near Woodhouse Lane (pictured), a placename that Shippey thought Tolkien would have taken as a trace of the woodwoses, the wild men of the woods.

On 11 November 1969, he delivered a lecture on "Tolkien as philologist" at a Tolkien day organised by the Adult Education Department at the University of Birmingham. Joy Hill, Tolkien's private secretary, was in the audience and afterward, she asked him for the script, for Tolkien to read. On 13 April 1970, Shippey received a letter from Tolkien in response; he records that it took him 30 years to decode the "specialised politeness-language of Old Western Man" in which Tolkien replied to Shippey's interpretations of his work, even though, Shippey writes, he speaks the same language himself. Tolkien wrote, hinting that Shippey was "nearly" (italics supplied by Shippey) always correct but that Tolkien had not had the time to tell him about his design as it "may be found in a large finished work, and the actual events or experiences as seen or felt by the waking mind in the course of actual composition [i.e. Tolkien's then-unpublished legendarium]"; ^[10] Shippey used the phrase "Course of actual composition" as the title of the final chapter of The Road to Middle-earth. ^[30]

Shippey and Tolkien met later in 1972 when Shippey was invited for dinner by Norman Davis, who had succeeded Tolkien as the Merton Professor of English Language. When he became a Fellow of St. John's College that same year, Shippey taught Old and Middle English using Tolkien's syllabus. ^[10]

Shippey's first printed essay on Tolkien, "Creation from Philology in The Lord of the Rings", expanded on his 1970 lecture. In 1979, he was elected into a former position of Tolkien's, the Chair of English Language and Medieval English Literature at Leeds University. He noted that his office at Leeds, like Tolkien's, was just off Woodhouse Lane, a name that in his view Tolkien would certainly have interpreted as a trace of the woodwoses, the wild men of the woods "lurking in the hills above the Aire". ^[29]

His first Tolkien book, The Road to Middle-earth , was published in 1982. In this he attempted to set Tolkien in the tradition of comparative philology, a discipline founded by Jacob Grimm, which he regarded as the major source of Tolkien's inspiration. In 2000, however, he published Tolkien: Author of the Century, in which he attempted also to set Tolkien in the context of his own time: "writing fantasy, but voicing in that fantasy the most pressing and most immediately relevant issues of the whole monstrous twentieth century – questions of industrialised warfare, the origin of evil, the nature of humanity". This would include writers affected by war like Kurt Vonnegut, William Golding, and George Orwell. ^[10] An enlarged third edition of Road to Middle-earth was published in 2005; in its preface Shippey states that he had assumed (wrongly) that the 1982 book would be his last word on the subject, and in the text he sets out his view, stated at more length in Author of the Century, that "the Lord of the Rings in particular is a war-book, also a post-war book", comparing Tolkien's writing to that of other twentieth-century authors. ^{[10] [31]} Road rigorously refutes what was then the long-running literary hostility to Tolkien, and explains to instinctive lovers of Lord of the Rings why they are right to like it. ^[32] It has been described as "the single best thing written on Tolkien", and "the seminal monograph". ^{[3] [33]} The book has received over 900 scholarly citations. ^[34] Both Road and Author have been often reprinted and translated. In 2000, Michael Drout and H. Wynne looked back at Shippey's books as landmarks in Tolkien research; they comment that "The real brilliance of Road was in method: Shippey would relentlessly gather small philological facts and combine them into unassailable logical propositions; part of the pleasure of reading Road lies in watching all these pieces fall into place and Shippey's larger arguments materialize out of the welter of interesting detail." ^[35]

As an acknowledged expert on Tolkien, Shippey served for a while on the editorial board of Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review. ^[27] Gergely Nagy, reviewing Shippey's festschrift , wrote that Shippey "has been (and still is) an enabler for all of us in Tolkien Studies: author of the seminal The Road to Middle-earth (first published in 1983) and countless insightful articles, he is the veritable pope of the field." ^[36]

Family life

Shippey married Susan Veale in 1966; after that marriage ended, he married Catherine Elizabeth Barton in 1993. He has three children. ^[9] He retired in 2008, and now lives in Dorset. ^{[12] [37]}

Film and television

Shippey has appeared in several television documentaries, in which he spoke about Tolkien and his Middle-earth writings:

• 1984: Tolkien Remembered ^[38]
• 1996: J.R.R.T.: A Film Portrait of J.R.R. Tolkien ^[39]
• 1998: An Awfully Big Adventure: J.R.R. Tolkien ^[40]
• 2002: Page to Screen: The Lord of the Rings ^[41]
• 2003: J.R.R. Tolkien: Origins of Middle-Earth ^[42]

He participated in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he assisted the dialect coaches. ^[11] He was featured on all three of the documentary DVDs that accompany the special extended edition of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and later also that of The Hobbit film trilogy. ^[12] He summarized his experiences with the film project as follows:

"The funny thing about interviews is you never know which bits they're going to pick. It always feels as if they sit you down, shine bright lights in your eyes, and ask you questions until you say something really silly, and that's the bit they choose. At least they didn't waterboard me. But it was good fun, and I'd cheerfully do it again." ^[43]

Publications

Apart from his published books, Shippey has written a large number of scholarly articles. ^[44]

Books written

• Old English Verse (London: Hutchinson, 1972, ISBN   978-0-09-111031-4).
• Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1976; 2nd ed., 1977 ISBN   0-091-11030-0).
• Beowulf. Arnold's Studies in English Literature series (London: Edward Arnold, 1978, ISBN   978-0-71316-147-2).
• The Road to Middle-earth (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983), 2nd ed. (London: HarperCollins, 1993), Revised and Expanded edition (London: HarperCollins, 2005 ISBN   978-0-26110-275-0).
• J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (London: HarperCollins, 2001, ISBN   978-0-26110-401-3).
• Roots and Branches: Selected Papers on Tolkien (Zurich and Berne: Walking Tree Publishers, Cormarë Series 11, 2007, ISBN   978-3-905703-05-4).
• Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction (Liverpool University Press, 2016, ISBN   978-1-78138-261-5).
• Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings (Reaktion Books, 2018, ISBN   978-1-780239-09-5).
• Beowulf and the North Before the Vikings (Arc Humanities Press, 2022, ISBN   978-1-80270-013-8).

Translations

• Beowulf: Translation and Commentary (Expanded Edition). Ed. Leonard Neidorf. (Uppsala Books, 2024, ISBN   978-1-96136-114-0).

Books edited

• Fictional Space: Essays on Contemporary Science Fiction, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991, ISBN   0-631-17129-0).
• The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories , (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, ISBN   0-19-214204-6).
• Fiction 2000: On Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative, with George Slusser, (U Georgia Press, 1993).
• The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994 ISBN   0-19-214216-X).
• Beowulf: The Critical Heritage, with Andreas Haarder (New York: Routledge, 1998 ISBN   978-1-13800-910-3).
• Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honour of Leslie J. Workman, with Richard Utz (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), ISBN   2-503-50166-4, OCLC   40884815.
• The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005 ISBN   978-2-50352-094-0).
• Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R.D. Fulk, with Leonard Neidorf and Rafael J. Pascual (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2016 ISBN   978-1-84384-438-9).

Awards and distinctions

• 1984 – Mythopoeic Award, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies, The Road to Middle-earth ^[4]
• 2001 – Mythopoeic Award, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies, J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century ^[5]
• 2001 – World Fantasy Award, Special Award Professional, J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century ^[7]
• 2008 – Mythopoeic Award, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies, The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous ^[6]
• 2008 -- Festschrift edited by Andrew Wawn, Graham Johnson and John Walter, Constructing Nations, Reconstructing Myth.
• 2014 – Festschrift edited by John Wm. Houghton, Janet Brennan Croft, Nancy Martsch, John D. Rateliff, and Robin Anne Reid, Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey ^[2]
• 2020 - Festschrift, edited by Eric Shane Bryan and Alaexander Ames, Literary Speech Acts of the Medieval North: Essays inspired by the works of T A Shippey,

References

1. Clute, John (12 August 2013). "Shippey, Tom". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (3rd online ed.). Retrieved 22 October 2013.
2. Houghton, John Wm.; Croft, Janet Brennan; Martsch, N., eds. (2014). Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey. McFarland. pp. 1–5, 11–15. ISBN   978-1-4766-1486-1 . Retrieved 28 November 2021.
3. Nagy, Gergely (2005). "The Road to Middle-earth, Revised and Expanded Edition (review)". Tolkien Studies. 2 (1): 258–261. doi:10.1353/tks.2005.0026. S2CID   170416664.
4. "Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies 1984". Mythopoeic Society . Retrieved 28 November 2021.
5. "Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies 2001". Mythopoeic Society . Retrieved 28 November 2021.
6. "Mythopoeic Awards Acceptance Remarks – 2008". Mythopoeic Society . Retrieved 23 August 2022.
7. "World Fantasy Awards. Special Award, Professional Winner 2001" . Retrieved 28 November 2021.
8. Hanley, Paul (8 February 2008). "Let us introduce you to ... Thomas Shippey, PhD". The University News.
9. "Shippey, T(homas) A(lan) 1943-". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
10. Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982]. The Road to Middle-Earth (Third ed.). HarperCollins. Preface to the Third Edition, pages xvii–xxi. ISBN   978-0-261-10275-0.
11. White, Claire E. "Talking Tolkien With Thomas Shippey". The Internet Writing Journal. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
12. Shippey, Tom (2020). "Personal Statement" (PDF). Saint Louis University . Retrieved 24 November 2021.
13. Hickes, Martin (10 September 2010). "JRR Tolkien and his overlooked connections with Leeds". The Guardian .
14. "Tom Shippey". Signum University . Retrieved 24 November 2021.
15. See complete list at tomshippey.com: many of these works are now available online.
16. Haarder, Andreas; Shippey, Tom, eds. (15 August 2005). Beowulf. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203979457. ISBN   978-1-134-97094-0.
17. Shippey, Tom; Arnold, Martin, eds. (2005). Studies in Medievalism (XIV). Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. ISBN   978-1-84384-063-3.
18. Shippey, Tom (1993). "Principles of Conversation in Beowulf". In Fox, Gwyneth; Hoey, Michael; Sinclair, John M. (eds.). Techniques of Description. London: Routledge. ISBN   978-0-203-16809-7.
19. Shippey, Tom (2001). "Wicked Queens and Cousin Strategies in Beowulf and Elsewhere". Medievalists.net. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
20. Shippey, Tom (1997). "Alternate Historians: Newt, Kingers, Harry, And Me". Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts . 8 (1): 15–33. JSTOR   43308277.
21. Shippey, Tom (2012). "Historical Fiction and the Post-Imperial Arthur". In Fulton, Helen (ed.). A Companion to Arthurian Literature. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN   978-1-4051-5789-6.
22. Lönnroth, Lars (2019). "Laughing Shall I Die. Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings by Tom Shippey". Saga-Book. 43: 158–160. JSTOR   48617225.
23. See uppsalabooks.com, which lists his video appearances on social media.
24. Bryan, Eric; Ames, Alexander (2020). Literary Speech Acts of the Medieval North: Essays inspired by the works of T.A. Shippey. Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies. ISBN   978-0-86698-610-6.
25. "Tom Shippeys's Introduction to Helliconia". Brian Aldiss Official Website.
26. Harrison, Harry (2014). Harry Harrison! Harry Harrison!: it seemed like a good idea at the time. Tor, A Tom Doherty Associates Book. West of Eden. ISBN   978-0-7653-3308-7. OCLC   889324087.
27. "Shippey's WSJ reviews".
28. Blish, James (2009). Shippey, Tom (ed.). Flights of Eagles (1st ed.). NESFA Press. ISBN   978-1-886778-86-3.
29. Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982]. The Road to Middle-Earth (Third ed.). HarperCollins. p. 74, footnote. ISBN   978-0-261-10275-0.
30. Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982]. The Road to Middle-Earth (Third ed.). HarperCollins. ch. 9 "The Course of Actual Composition". ISBN   978-0-261-10275-0.
31. Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982]. The Road to Middle-Earth (Third ed.). HarperCollins. pp. 100–101, 371, 374–375. ISBN   978-0-261-10275-0.
32. Yates, Jessica (1984). "The Road Goes Ever On". Mythlore . 9 (4). article 15.
33. GoodKnight, Glen (1993). "The Road Goes Ever On". Mythlore . 19 (3). article 14.
34. "Tom Shippey". Google Scholar. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
35. Drout, M. D.; Wynne, H. (2000). "Tom Shippey's JRR Tolkien: Author of the Century and a look back at Tolkien criticism since 1982". Envoi. 9 (2).
36. Nagy, Gergely (2017). "[Review] Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey (2014), edited by John Wm. Houghton, Janet Brennan Croft, Nancy Martsch, John D. Rateliff, and Robin Anne Reid". Journal of Tolkien Research . 4 (1). Article 7.
37. Shippey, Tom (8 July 2014). "Tolkien Book to Jackson Script: The Medium and the Message". Swarthmore College . Retrieved 25 November 2021.
38. "Tolkien Remembered". Mace Archive. 23 June 2017. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
39. "J.R.R.T.: A Film Portrait of J.R.R. Tolkien (1996)". What Is My Movie. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
40. Dixon, Greg (29 November 2001). "'Rings' master's accidental circus". The New Zealand Herald . Retrieved 29 May 2022.
41. Thompson, Kristin (2007). The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood. University of California Press. p. 118. ISBN   978-0-520-25813-6.
42. "J.R.R. Tolkien: Origins of Middle-Earth (2003)". Movie Films. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
43. "Transcript of chat session with Pr. Tom Shippey during The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun Online Release Party (09.05.09) – comments (1)". Tolkien Library. Pieter Collier.
44. "Tom Shippey". Google Scholar. Retrieved 24 June 2022.

External links

• Tom Shippey at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Tom Shippey at the London Review of Books , 47 pieces as of October 2022

Tom Shippey
In 2015
Born	Thomas Alan Shippey (1943-09-09) 9 September 1943 (age 81) Calcutta, British India
Nationality	British
Occupation(s)	Academic and writer
Known for	Tolkien scholarship
Academic background
Education	King Edward's School, Birmingham
Alma mater	Queens' College, Cambridge (B.A., M.A., Ph.D.)

v t e J. R. R. Tolkien
Bibliography Letters
Poetry and songs	Songs for the Philologists (1936) " Bagme Bloma " The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (1953) "A Walking Song" (1954) The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962) "Errantry" "Fastitocalon" "The Sea-Bell" "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late" The Road Goes Ever On (1967) Bilbo's Last Song (1974) The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (2009) The Fall of Arthur (2013) The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien (2024) List of Tolkien's alliterative verse
Fiction	The Hobbit (1937) "Leaf by Niggle" (1947) The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (1945) Farmer Giles of Ham (1949) The Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) The Two Towers (1954) The Return of the King (1955) Tree and Leaf (1964) The Tolkien Reader (1966) Smith of Wootton Major (1967)
Posthumous fiction	The Father Christmas Letters (1976) The Silmarillion (1977) Unfinished Tales (1980) Mr. Bliss (1982) The History of Middle-earth (1983–1996) The Book of Lost Tales The Lays of Beleriand The Shaping of Middle-earth The Lost Road and Other Writings The History of The Lord of the Rings Morgoth's Ring The War of the Jewels The Peoples of Middle-earth Roverandom (1998) The Children of Húrin (2007) The History of The Hobbit (2007) The Story of Kullervo (2015) Beren and Lúthien (2017) The Fall of Gondolin (2018) The Nature of Middle-earth (2021) The Fall of Númenor (2022)
Academic works	Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English text, 1925) "The Devil's Coach Horses" (1925) "Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad" (1929) "Sigelwara Land" (1932–34) "Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale" (1934) "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936) "On Fairy-Stories" (1939) Eucatastrophe "On Translating Beowulf " (1940) Sir Orfeo (1944) Ancrene Wisse (1962) "English and Welsh" (1963) Jerusalem Bible (as translator and lexicographer, 1966)
Posthumous academic	Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo (translations, 1975) Exodus (1981) Finn and Hengest (1982) The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays (1983) Beowulf and the Critics (2002) Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary with "Sellic Spell" (2014) A Secret Vice (2016)
Scholars	Biographers Humphrey Carpenter J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977, authorized biography) John Garth Tolkien and the Great War The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien Catherine McIlwaine Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth Charles Moseley Christian Stratford Caldecott Matthew T. Dickerson Colin Duriez Peter Kreeft Holly Ordway Joseph Pearce Fleming Rutledge Ralph C. Wood Literary critics Douglas A. Anderson Nicholas Birns Bradley J. Birzer Janice Bogstad & Philip Kaveny Picturing Tolkien David Bratman Janet Brennan Croft Tolkien on Film Patrick Curry Bradford Lee Eden Dimitra Fimi Tolkien, Race and Cultural History Jason Fisher Verlyn Flieger Interrupted Music A Question of Time Splintered Light Michael Foster Nick Groom Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide Randel Helms Thomas Honegger Charles A. Huttar Paul H. Kocher Master of Middle-Earth Stuart D. Lee The Keys of Middle-earth Jared Lobdell A Tolkien Compass John D. Rateliff Robin Anne Reid Brian Rosebury Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon Amy H. Sturgis Anna Vaninskaya Richard C. West Elizabeth Whittingham Rose Zimbardo Understanding The Lord of the Rings Linguists Anthony Appleyard Helge Fauskanger Carl F. Hostetter Tom Loback David Salo Arden R. Smith Allan Turner Medievalists, Classicists Marjorie Burns Perilous Realms Jane Chance Tolkien and the Invention of Myth Tolkien's Art: 'A Mythology for England' Michael D. C. Drout J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia Jonathan Evans Vincent Ferré Gergely Nagy Tom Shippey J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century The Road to Middle-Earth Elizabeth Solopova Sandra Ballif Straubhaar Hamish Williams Tolkien and the Classical World Popular Lin Carter Robert Foster Glen GoodKnight Michael Martinez Charles Noad J. E. A. Tyler
Related	Family Francis Xavier Morgan Influences Artwork Languages constructed by Tolkien Impact of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings Inklings Mythopoeic Society Elvish Linguistic Fellowship Tolkien's impact on fantasy Tolkien and the modernists Tolkien Estate Tolkien fandom Tolkien fan fiction Tolkien Gateway The Tolkien Society Awards Memorials Reception Tolkien research Mythlore Tolkien Studies Works inspired by Tolkien Tolkien (biographical film) Poems and Songs of Middle Earth (album) Language and Human Nature The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary