John Garth (author)
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John Garth is a British journalist and author, known especially for writings about
J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...
including his biography ''
Tolkien and the Great War ''Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth'' is a 2003 biography by John Garth of the philologist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien's early life, focusing on his formative military experiences during the First World War. The ...
'' and a book on the places that inspired
Middle-earth Middle-earth is the Setting (narrative), setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the ''Midgard, Miðgarðr'' of Norse mythology and ''Middangeard'' in Old English works, including ''Beowulf'' ...
, '' The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien''. He won a 2004 Mythopoeic Award for Scholarship for his work on Tolkien. The biography influenced much Tolkien scholarship in the subsequent decades.


Biography

John Garth read English at
St Anne's College, Oxford St Anne's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 and gained full college status in 1959. Originally a women's college, it has admitted men since 1979. ...
. He trained as a journalist and worked for 18 years in newspapers including the ''
Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...
'' in London. He then became a freelance author specialising in
J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...
, while continuing to contribute newspaper articles. Among his works of Tolkien scholarship are two
monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...
s, namely the 2003 '' Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth'' and the 2020 '' The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth''. His many articles and chapters on Tolkien include "A Brief Biography" in
Wiley-Blackwell Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...
's 2014 '' A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien'', and ten historical essays in
Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...
's 2006 '' J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment''. He has contributed articles and book reviews on Tolkien-related subjects in the specialist journals ''
Tolkien Studies The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have generated a body of research covering many aspects of his High fantasy, fantasy writings. These encompass ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Silmarillion'', along with Tolkien's legendarium, his legendarium t ...
'' and '' Mallorn'', and in the national press including ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'', ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'', ''
New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...
'', and ''
The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
''.


Reception


''Tolkien and the Great War''

Luke Shelton, editor of '' Mallorn'', the journal of the Tolkien Society, called ''Tolkien and the Great War'' an excellent book on how the First World War might have shaped Tolkien's thought. The Tolkien scholar Janet Brennan Croft, reviewing the same book for ''World Literature Today'', wrote that Garth had ably portrayed Tolkien's early life with his close friends, using their own papers and their British Army
company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...
records. She found the first part of the book "somewhat leisurely", but the account of Tolkien's training and battlefield experience was "gripping". Garth's biography of Tolkien in his war years influenced much Tolkien scholarship in the subsequent decades. By 2021, a reviewer was able to state that each of the 16 essays in a scholarly collection was responding to "Garth's seminal
ork Ork or ORK may refer to: * Ork (folklore), a mountain demon of Tyrol folklore * ''Ork'' (video game), a 1991 game for the Amiga and Atari ST systems * Ork (''Warhammer 40,000''), a fictional species in the ''Warhammer 40,000'' universe * '' Ork!' ...
. reviewing


''Tolkien at Exeter College''

The Tolkien scholar Michael Foster, reviewing ''Tolkien at Exeter College'' for ''
Mythlore ''Mythlore'' is a biannual (originally quarterly) peer-reviewed academic journal founded by Glen GoodKnight and published by the Mythopoeic Society. Although it publishes articles that explore the genres of myth and fantasy in general, special a ...
'', described it as "a very good thing indeed", even if small (at 64 pages), with "rare photographs" that revealed "a time of innocence, a time of confidences", and serving as a kind of prequel to ''Tolkien and the Great War''.


''The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien''

Reviewing ''The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth'' for ''Mythlore'', Foster described the book as a "masterful study ... encyclopedic in its scope", combining details of Tolkien's life with Middle-earth. He admired the photographs as well as their scholarship and found "virtue" in the journalistic use of sidebars on background topics like Tolkien's debt to Anglo-Saxon cosmology or his mythology for England. He quotes Garth's account of the impact of Tolkien's "many trips to the trenches" in 1916, passing a crossroads where "a
calvary Calvary ( or ) or Golgotha () was a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where, according to Christianity's four canonical gospels, Jesus was crucified. Since at least the early medieval period, it has been a destination for pilgrimage. ...
had once stood .. at a tree-girt crossroads that the soldiers called Crucifix Corner. Similarly, en route to
Mordor In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional continent of Middle-earth, Mordor (; from Sindarin ''Black Land'' and Quenya ''Land of Shadow'') is a dark realm. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, and to the south of Mirkwood. Mount ...
, Frodo and Sam see the old stone king at the Crossroads in
Ithilien Gondor is a fictional kingdom in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, described as the greatest realm of Men in the west of Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age. The third volume of ''The Lord of the Rings'', ''The Return of the King'', is largely ...
—his head knocked off by
orc An orc (sometimes spelt ork; ), in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy fiction, is a race of humanoid monsters, which he also calls "goblin". In Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'', orcs appear as a brutish, aggressive, ugly, and malevol ...
s yet still whole." Foster comments that "Thus the Somme was reborn as the most horrific geography of Middle-earth. It inspired the Dead Marshes, the Barrow-downs, and Morgul Vale."


Awards and distinctions

* 2004 Mythopoeic Award for Scholarship * 2014, 2016, 2017 The Tolkien Society Awards (2 best articles, 1 outstanding contribution) * 2015 Fellow in Humanistic Studies, Black Mountain Institute, University of Las Vegas


Works

Garth has written many articles and book reviews in newspapers and magazines including
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
. Some of his major works are listed below.


Books

* 2003 '' Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth'' (HarperCollins & Houghton Mifflin). The book has been translated into at least nine languages. * 2014 ''Tolkien at Exeter College: How an Oxford undergraduate created Middle-earth'' ( Exeter College) * 2020 '' The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth'' (
Frances Lincoln Frances Elisabeth Rosemary Lincoln (20 March 1945 – 26 February 2001) was an English independent publisher of illustrated books. She published under her own name and the company went on to become Frances Lincoln Publishers. In 1995, Lincoln w ...
&
Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...
). The book has been translated into at least ten languages.


Chapters

* 2006 – ten entries in the '' J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia'' (
Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...
, ed. Michael D. C. Drout) * 2014 "A Brief Biography" in '' A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien'' (
Wiley-Blackwell Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...
, ed. Stuart D. Lee) * 2014 "'The road from adaptation to invention': How Tolkien came to the brink of Middle-earth in 1914" in ''
Tolkien Studies The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have generated a body of research covering many aspects of his High fantasy, fantasy writings. These encompass ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Silmarillion'', along with Tolkien's legendarium, his legendarium t ...
'' 11 * 2018 "Tolkien and the Inklings" in '' Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth'' ( Bodleian Publishing, ed. Catherine McIlwaine) * 2019 "Ilu's Music: The Creation of Tolkien's Creation Myth" in ''Sub-creating Arda'' ( Walking Tree, eds.
Dimitra Fimi Dimitra Fimi (born 2 June 1978) is a Greek academic and writer. She became the Professor of Fantasy and Children's Literature at the University of Glasgow in 2023. Her field of research includes the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and children's fa ...
, Thomas Honegger)


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Garth, John Tolkien scholars 20th-century British journalists 21st-century British non-fiction writers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford Tolkien Society Award winners