Credits
David Bratman is co-editor of the journal Tolkien Studies, a member of the Mythopoeic Society and former editor of its Mythprint magazine. He writes extensively about Tolkien, fantasy and science fiction.
Leo Carruthers is Emeritus Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Paris. He has written many works on medieval literature, including Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Everyman, and edited the essay collection, Tolkien et le Moyen Âge.
Patrick Curry writes on a wide variety of topics, including metaphysics, ecological ethics, divination and spirituality. On Tolkien, his works include Defending Middle-earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity and Deep Roots in a Time of Frost: Essays on Tolkien.
Nadia Drici holds a PhD (Aix-en-Provence, France) in comparative literature. A specialist in magical realism and postcolonial literature, she is also a researcher in the anthropology of beliefs.
Vincent Ferré is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Paris, a writer and translator. He has published and lectured widely on Tolkien. His works include Tolkien: sur les rivages de la Terre du milieu and Lire J R R Tolkien. He co-curated the Bibliothèque nationale’s Tolkien: Voyage en Terre du Milieu exhibition held in 2019/2020 and co-edited its catalogue; and supervised all translations appearing on the original version of this website.
Verlyn Flieger is Professor Emerita in the Department of English at the University of Maryland and a specialist in comparative mythology. She has edited many Tolkien works, including Smith of Wootton Major, The Story of Kullervo and The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun. Her critical works include Splintered Light and Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien’s Mythology. She is co-editor of the journal Tolkien Studies.
Nicole Guedeney is a child psychiatrist practising in Paris and a French specialist on John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory. She wrote L’attachement: un lien vital and (with Antoine Guédeney) L’attachement: approche théorique.
Thomas Honegger is Professor of Medieval English Language and Literature at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena and an editor with Walking Tree Publishers. He has written and published extensively on Tolkien.
Carl Hostetter is a member of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship and editor of Vinyar Tengwar, a journal dedicated to Tolkien philology. He edited Tolkien’s Legendarium: Essays on ‘The History of Middle-earth’ with Verlyn Flieger in 2000 and The Nature of Middle-earth in 2021.
Daniel Lauzon is a translator living in Montreal who has worked on Tolkien for many years. He translated into French three volumes of The History of Middle-earth as well as the new Bourgois editions of The Hobbit (2012) and The Lord of the Rings (2014-2016).
Catherine McIlwaine is the Tolkien Archivist at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where she has worked on the Tolkien archive since 2003. She is the author of Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth and curated the Bodleian’s summer exhibition of the same name in 2018. The Tolkien Estate is greatly indebted to Catherine for her professionalism and expertise in curating and editing this website.
Maxime Hortense Pascal is a writer and poet. Her literary works include novels and various genres of poetry; she also works with performing artists to bring her writings to the live stage. Among her published works are Never, L’Invention de la soif and Point typographique délaissé.
John Rateliff is a writer, editor, designer of role-playing games and the author of The History of ’The Hobbit’. He is a renowned Tolkien scholar and contributor to Tolkien journals.
Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond are esteemed for their extensive work across many Tolkien subjects. They wrote the landmark J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide and J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator and have prepared many editions of Tolkien’s works, including Roverandom and Farmer Giles of Ham.
Tom Shippey is a specialist in Medieval English Language and Literature and has taught at the Universities of Birmingham, Oxford, Leeds and Saint-Louis, Missouri. He is a Tolkien specialist and the author of The Road to Middle-earth (1982) and J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (2000).
Martin Simonson is a scholar, novelist and translator, whose Tolkien research spans twenty years. He has translated many of Tolkien’s works into Spanish and, having published widely on the subject, is an authority within the Spanish-speaking world on Tolkien’s legendarium. He teaches English literature at the University of the Basque Country in Spain.
Arden Smith holds a PhD in Germanic Linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley. He edits Parma Eldalamberon, a Tolkien philological journal, and has published extensively on Tolkien’s invented languages.
Baillie Tolkien is a graduate of the University of Manitoba and holds a Masters degree in English from the University of Oxford. She worked as secretary to J.R.R. Tolkien in the 1960s and edited the perennially popular Father Christmas Letters in 1976, and its subsequent editions.
Priscilla Tolkien (1929-2022) was J.R.R. Tolkien’s only daughter. She graduated in English from the University of Oxford and spent much of her professional life in the probation service before becoming a teacher of literature. She is the author, with her brother John, of The Tolkien Family Album (1992).
Christopher Tolkien (1924-202) was one of the first to hear The Hobbit and his father’s other ‘Great Tales’, and he followed the evolution of The Lord of the Rings closely while training as an RAF pilot during the Second World War. He was a Fellow and Tutor of Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon and Middle English at New College, Oxford. His professional career paved the way for his extensive work on his father’s unpublished writings, which he began editing and preparing for publication from 1975 onwards. His many publications include The Silmarillion (1977), Unfinished Tales (1980), The History of Middle-earth (1983-1996) and the three ‘Great Tales’ The Children of Húrin (2007), Beren and Lúthien (2017) and The Fall of Gondolin (2018).
For this website Christopher Tolkien wrote the exclusive prose summary of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún and permitted the use of his essay on the making of The Silmarillion and his introductions to certain other works, including The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, The Fall of Arthur and Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary.
A huge debt is due to Christopher Tolkien for his tireless and irreplaceable work on his father’s papers over the last four decades of his life, and his unique contribution to Tolkien scholarship and studies, as well as to the continuing interest in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien in all corners of the world.
Translators. Translations of items on this website from English to French were made by Vincent Ferré, Laura Martin-Gomez, Christine Laferrière, Daniel Lauzon, Delphine Martin, Vivien Stocker, Adam Tolkien and Rachel Tolkien. Translations into Spanish were made by Vanessa Richard and Martin Simonson. The Elvish translations were made by Arden Smith, Carl Hostetter and Patrick Wynne.
Publishers. The entirety of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works, as well as many critical studies and annotated editions, are published by HarperCollins Publishers in London. They in turn work with many publishers around the world who, together with many expert translators, have ensured that the interest in Tolkien’s works is a truly worldwide phenomenon.
Adam Tolkien. The Tolkien Estate gratefully acknowledges the significant contribution of Adam Tolkien as the creator of, and driving force behind, the original version of its website.