Tolkien and the Great War (03 Edition)

"Very much the best book about J.R.R. Tolkien that has yet been written." — A.N. Wilson

"A highly intelligent book ... Garth displays impressive skills both as researcher and writer." — Max Hastings

"It is a strange story that Garth tells, but he tells it clearly and compellingly." — Tom Shippey

"Somewhere, I think, Tolkien is nodding in appreciation." — Charles Matthews, San Jose Mercury News

"Gripping from start to finish and offers important new insights." - Library Journal

"A labor of love in which journalist Garth combines a newsman's nose for a good story with a scholar's scrupulous attention to detail... Brilliantly argued." — Daily Mail

"Insight into how a writer turned academia into art, how deeply friendship supports and wounds us, and how the death and disillusionment that characterized World War I inspired Tolkien's lush saga." - Detroit Free Press

“To be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than in 1939 . . . by 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.”

So J.R.R. Tolkien responded to critics who saw The Lord of the Rings as a reaction to the Second World War. Tolkien and the Great War tells for the first time the full story of how he embarked on the creation of Middle-earth in his youth as the world around him was plunged into catastrophe. This biography reveals the horror and heroism that he experienced as a signals officer in the Battle of the Somme and introduces the circle of friends who spurred his mythology into life. It shows how, after two of these brilliant young men were killed, Tolkien pursued the dream they had all shared by launching his epic of good and evil.

This is the first substantially new biography of Tolkien since 1977, meticulously researched and distilled from his personal wartime papers and a multitude of other sources.

John Garth argues that the foundation of tragic experience in the First World War is the key to Middle-earth's enduring power. Tolkien used his mythic imagination not to escape from reality but to reflect and transform the cataclysm of his generation. While his contemporaries surrendered to disillusionment, he kept enchantment alive, reshaping an entire literary tradition into a form that resonates to this day.

Contents List of Illustrations ix Maps x Preface xiii part one The immortal four 1 Prologue 3 1 Before 11 2 A young man with too much imagination 38 3 The Council of London 54 4 The shores of Fae¨rie 71 5 Benighted wanderers 89 6 Too long in slumber 114 part two Tears unnumbered 139 7 Larkspur and Canterbury-bells 141 8 A bitter winnowing 152 9 ‘Something has gone crack 169 10 In a hole in the ground 186 part three The Lonely Isle 203 11 Castles in the air 205 12 Tol Withernon and Fladweth Amrod 224 Epilogue. ‘A new light 253 Postscript. ‘One who dreams alone 287 Notes 315 Bibliography 369 Index 381