J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beren and Lúthien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, was published yesterday. The book is an attempt by Christopher Tolkien to extract one of the most beautiful, moving, and personal stories of his father’s ‘legendarium’ into a standalone book, allowing the…
Literary Tourism: Wales, Land of Legends
Literature Wales (http://www.literaturewales.org/) launched today their new literary tourism website: Land of Legends – http://www.landoflegends.wales/. This was a project funded by Visit Wales (http://www.visitwales.com/) and I was delighted to have been one of the consultants on literary connections of specific…
The book is out! (plus “extended” table of contents!)
This week, the e-book version of my new monograph, Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy, was released. This is my first experience of the braver new world of simultaneous e-book and hardback publication. The hardback won’t be out there for…
“Twas the Night Before Christmas” and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Tinfang Warble
Following family tradition, the bedtime book I read to my near-four-year-old son on Christmas Eve was “The Night Before Christmas”, aka “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, by Clement Clarke Moore*. I used my mum’s old copy of the poem, a…
An interview with Henry Neff: Celtic myth, liminal times and fantastic creatures
My forthcoming monograph, Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy, examines a number of ‘Celtic’-inspired works of fantasy literature, including Henry Neff’s The Tapestry. The Tapestry is a series of five fantasy novels that create an alternative world of ambitions scope, and…
Solving a little puzzle in Lloyd Alexander’s Welsh research
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about one of the main authors I have included in my forthcoming monograph (Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy): Lloyd Alexander. Lloyd Alexander’s fantasy world of Prydain is modelled upon a particular vision…
A Beginner’s Guide to Researching Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain
Well, my new book (third book, but second monograph) is due to appear in the new year from Palgrave Macmillan. It is titled Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy: Idealization, Identity, Ideology and it explores the creative uses of ‘Celtic’ myth (mainly…
A little Elvish love story in The Lord of the Rings
Stuck in trains for hours yesterday, I was revisiting favourite passages from The Lord of the Rings. It’s almost a cliche to say that every re-reading rewards you with new details of Tolkien’s invented world that you hadn’t quite noticed…
Mythgard classes, Tolkien’s Beowulf, JTR, Tolkien Companion and Kalamazoo
It’s been a while since my last update: I am back to lecturing full-time now, and I really hit the ground running this term! Among other modules, I taught Literary Transformations (Year 2), Gothic and Science Fiction (Year 3) and…
Clash of the Gods – Thanks!
Thanks to all of you who sent e-mails with kind words about “Clash of the Gods”: I am pleased you found it informative and engaging. I have still only seen bits and pieces of the three episodes I was in…