On this date in 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein Africa. Over his long lifetime, he delighted readers and fans world-wide with his writings including essays, children’s books and his beloved novels, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, that center around a race of short, down-to-earth creatures who live, of all places, in (very nice) holes in the ground.
Today, TORn joins millions of fans worldwide in celebrating Tolkien’s birthday. If you have the time and the inclination, you may want to join other fans gathering at local pubs where members of the Tolkien Society will be raising a glass and toasting: “The Professor!” If you’d like to learn more about the annual January third tradition, or find a local gathering near you, visit the Tolkien Society’s Tolkien Birthday Toast 2017 page here. Or instead, you may just want to curl up with a favorite Tolkien story or poem and toast him quietly with a nice cup of tea.
However you decide to celebrate, join us in wishing a happy birthday to “The Professor,” who’s life’s work has come to mean so much to us. Happy birthday, J.R.R. Tolkien!
TheOneRing.net would like to wish a very happy 92nd birthday to Christopher Tolkien. Thanks to Christopher, Tolkien fans around the world have been able to enjoy the works of his father, J.R.R. Tolkien, beyond what lies between the covers of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The devotion, integrity, and high standards he’s exhibited in bringing us more of his father’s writings are recognized and appreciated by our staff and our readers. Many happy returns of the day!
Exciting news for Tolkien fans today as we get further details on the upcoming Tolkien biopic from the Hollywood Reporter. Based on the HR headline, the title is ‘Middle Earth.’ Is that a bit of Hollywood contextual word play, or do they not realize the proper spelling would be Middle-earth? Time will tell.
The film will be directed by James Strong (Hey, he’s directed some Doctor Who episodes) and produced by LOTR trilogy alumni Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne. The script will be written by Angus Fletcher.
Are you excited for this new film? Scared as to what Hollywood might ‘change’ in an already extraordinary life story? Sound off in the comments below!
Penned by Angus Fletcher, the film will chart the tumultuous events that inspired him to pen ‘Hobbit’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogies.
James Strong is heading to Middle Earth.
The British director of Broadchurch, Gracepoint and Downton Abbey will helm the biopic about author J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
The film — featuring a script by Angus Fletcher, based on six years of interviews and archival research — will chart the tumultuous events that inspired him to pen Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogies: when war broke out in 1914, disrupting his Oxford life with his wife Edith Bratt, Tolkien embarked on four years of battle, hardship, and new friendships, which served to shape his imagination and start him on the path to Middle Earth.
It looks like audiences will get to see a film about the origins of Middle-earth in a new film called “Middle Earth.” More on the name in a moment.
The Hollywood Reporter announced this morning the film will chart “the tumultuous events” that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to write “The Hobbit,” and “The Lord of the Rings,” trilogy. (Actually the article said “trilogies,” but there is only one trilogy, as you know.) It is to be directed by James Strong who might be most easily recognizable as the director of two episodes of “Downton Abbey,” with the films “United,” with episodes of “Dr. Who,” as well.
The film also pairs two of the men who played a big role in Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy with New Line Cinema Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne. They were the gentlemen who helped get those movies made when most of Hollywood wouldn’t touch them. Later they had a falling out with Jackson and eventually New Line collapsed and was swallowed by Warner Bros.
Shaye and Lynee will produce the new film through their Unique Features with Rachael Horovitz. Strong is currently directing the AMC/ITV miniseries “Liar,” according to the article.
Now, about that name. J.R.R. Tolkien distinctly named his created world “Middle-earth” not “Middle Earth.” If you think that isn’t a big deal, remember he was a professor of languages and literature who worked on the dictionary and created the whole thing in the first place because he was a linguist who was inventing languages.
So while it is easy to forgive a fan using Middle-earth as two words with capital letters, not so much in movie titles. Warner Bros., for example, while taking creative license with “The Hobbit,” got it right virtually every, single, time. To Tolkien, the subject of the biography, language matters.
And, to reverse things, nobody would excuse a title about the place “San-francisco” and not find it odd.
Making a biography about Tolkien, supposedly telling the story of his life, and getting that detail wrong in the title could be a bad sign.
On the other hand, this could be just a simple oversight by The Hollywood Reporter writer, but hey, the story also included a picture of Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins instead a picture of, you know, The Professor, so a mistake sounds pretty reasonable. That and stating that Tolkien had two trilogies makes it seem as least possible as a writer’s error. However, most of the info sounds like it was taken from a press release, which would prominently feature a title.
In any case, fans have more Tolkien and more about the creation of Middle-earth to look forward to.
If you haven’t read “J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography,” by Humpfrey Carpenter, it is essential. And, “Tolkien and the Great War,” by John Garth, is also excellent and covers the ground the film will attempt to cover.
Christopher Tolkien, known to all fans and scholars of his father, J.R.R. Tolkien as the devoted son who brought many of his father’s previously unpublished works to light, is to become a recipient of the 2017 Bodley Medal. The award, which includes past laureates David Attenborough and Stephen Hawking, honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the worlds of communication and literature.
Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, said: “Christopher Tolkien’s contribution as a scholar and editor has been immense. Without his dedication and commitment, his father’s works would not have reached such a broad public audience and without his erudition and scholarship J R R Tolkien’s work would not have been presented so fully and with such authority.”
Christopher Tolkien said: “Although I have never looked for anything remotely of such a kind, I find it especially welcome to receive the Bodley Medal in that it affirms the unique significance of my father’s creation and accords a worthy place in the Republic of Letters to Tolkien scholarship. It gives me particular pleasure that the award comes from and is conceived by the Bodleian, where a great part of my father’s manuscripts lie and where I have happy memories of the great library itself.”
According to the Bookseller article, The Bodleian is planning a major Tolkien exhibition for 2018; something to put on all of our calendars!
TheOneRing.net wishes to congratulate Christopher on this well-deserved award, and express our thanks for the many hours, days and years of painstaking attention and care dedicated to furthering our enjoyment of his and his father’s works.
Today we received official word from Tolkien publishers (in the USA) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: ten years on from the last Middle-earth related Tolkien publication, there will be a new book for fans of the Professor to enjoy!
Here’s what HMH say in their official press release:
‘RETURN TO MIDDLE-EARTH FOR HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has acquired the U.S. rights to publish BEREN AND LÚTHIEN by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien and illustrated by Alan Lee, in May 2017.
Christopher Tolkien explains:
‘The tale of Beren and Lúthien was, or became, an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion, the myths and legends of the First Age of the World conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien. Returning from France and the battle of the Somme at the end of 1916, he wrote the tale in the following year.
‘Essential to the story, and never changed, is the fate that shadowed the love of Beren and Lúthien: for Beren was a mortal man, but Lúthien was an immortal Elf. Her father, a great Elvish lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed Lúthien. This is the kernel of the legend; and it leads to the supremely heroic attempt of Beren and Lúthien together to rob the greatest of all evil beings, Melkor, called Morgoth, the Black Enemy, of a Silmaril.
‘In this book Christopher Tolkien has attempted to extract the story of Beren and Lúthien from the comprehensive work in which it was embedded; but that story was itself changing as it developed new associations within the larger history. To show something of the process whereby this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he has told the story in his father’s own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed. Presented together for the first time, they reveal aspects of the story, both in event and in narrative immediacy, that were afterwards lost.’
Published on the tenth anniversary of the last Middle-earth book, the New York Times bestseller The Children of Húrin, this new volume will similarly include drawings and color plates by Alan Lee, who also illustrated The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and went on to win Academy Awards for his work on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.’
The edition will be published in Europe by Harper Collins. Our friends at the Tolkien Society note that ‘Beren and Lúthien will be published 100 years since Tolkien’s wife Edith danced for him in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks in East Yorkshire, an event he later acknowledged was the inspiration for the meeting of the immortal Lúthien Tinúviel and the mortal Beren in the glades beside Esgalduin.’
You can read more about this upcoming publication here. Mark the calendar – 4th May 2017 will not be Star Wars day, but Beren and Lúthien day!
On this date in 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein Africa. Over his long lifetime, he delighted readers and fans world-wide with his writings including essays, children’s books and his beloved novels, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, that center around a race of short, down-to-earth creatures who live, of all places, in (very nice) holes in the ground.
Exciting news for Tolkien fans today as we get further details on the upcoming Tolkien biopic from the Hollywood Reporter. Based on the HR headline, the title is ‘Middle Earth.’ Is that a bit of Hollywood contextual word play, or do they not realize the proper spelling would be Middle-earth? Time will tell.
