Source: Harvey Breit, “Oxford Calling,” New York Times Book Review (June 5, 1955), pg. 8. “How does it happen that a writer of children’s books (who began that way, if we may believe his critics) can end by… Read More
Excerpts from Davenport, Guy. “Hobbits in Kentucky.” New York Times (February 23 1979), A27. “The first professor [Tolkien] to harrow me with the syntax and morphology of Old English had a speech impediment, wandered in his remarks, and seemed… Read More
Excerpts from Mitgang, Herbert. “Behind the Best Sellers: J.R.R. Tolkien.” New York Times (October 2 1977), 48. “After Professor Tolkien’s death at 81, international readers hoped that Middle-earth would somehow continue to live. The author’s son, Christopher, a World… Read More
Excerpts from “J.R.R. Tolkien Dead at 81; Wrote ‘Lord of the Rings’.” New York Times (September 3 1973), 18. “It did anything but [flop]. It was just four years later [1965], printed in paperback in this country by Ballantine… Read More
Excerpts from: Curtis, Antony. “Remembering Tolkien and Lewis.” British Book News (June 1977), 429-30. “Another time I arrived [as a student to a class with C.S. Lewis] before the others and he was staring out of the window… Read More
Excerpts from: Cater, William. “More and More People are Getting the J.R.R. Tolkien Habit.” Los Angeles Times (April 9, 1972), 14, 18. And “future students of Norse legend or early English poetry (the subjects of Tolkien’s academic life) will… Read More
Excerpts from Foster, William. “An Early History of the Hobbits.” Edinburgh Scotsman (February 5, 1972). “It [Allen and Unwin] is almost monopolised by Tolkien, running a Tolkien light industry from its faded, dusty premises in Museum Street, sending an… Read More
Excerpts from: Plimmer, Charlotte, and Denis Plimmer. “The Man Who Understands Hobbits.” London Daily Telegraph Magazine (March 22 1968), 31-32, 35. “‘Spiders,’ observed Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, cradling the word with the same affection that he cradled the pipe in… Read More
Excerpts from: Henry Resnick, “An Interview with Tolkien [March 2, 1966],” Niekas No. 18 (Late Spring 1967). “Well, I think it’s been building up [popularity of Tolkien’s books], you know; I think it’s an error to say that it… Read More
John Betjeman, “The usher of Highgate Junior School,” in T.S. Eliot Symposium (Chicago, IL: Regnery, 1949), 89-92. In 1914-15 I spent two unsuccessful terms at Highgate Junior School. Mr Eliot was a tall, quiet usher there whom we… Read More
Summer 1972: articles about local schools; a Spanish de Tocqueville; and Mortimer J. Adler. university bookman (summer 1972)
Source: Jacques Barzun, “The Great Books,” Atlantic Monthly 190 (1949): 79-81. barzun great books 1949
Stormfields 