A new book - On Tolkien: Interviews, Reminiscences, and Other Essays by Douglas A. Anderson -promises to be a fantastic insight into the world of JRR Tolkien through his own words and those of family, friends, and colleagues. A collection of unique interviews and private reminiscences can be found in this new book, opening with a concise interview with Tolkien in 1957 and continuing with remembrances and essays that gives the reader a developing picture of Tolkien the man and writer, first in his own voice and later from recollections of his friends and family.
Among the exclusive pieces are two lengthy recorded interviews that disclose Tolkien’s conversational style. Also included are a discussion by Priscilla of her father’s painting and drawing, and Christopher’s description of the making of The Silmarillion. We hear, too, from Tolkien’s colleagues and contemporaries at Oxford and in publishing, who discuss how Tolkien felt about his work’s reception in the wider world.
Douglas A. Anderson is an American Tolkien scholar, acknowledged as the worldwide expert on the textual history of The Hobbit. He has contributed the text notes for all Houghton Mifflin Tolkien editions for more than a decade. He is also a bookseller, formerly in Ithaca, New York, now in northern Indiana.
Marjorie J. Burns has taught nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature at Portland State University for thirty years. She has published and lectured extensively on Tolkien and is the author of Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
JRR Tolkien biography, bibliography and book reviews