Who is Tom Shippey and why is he considered an expert on Tolkien?
Tom Shippey is a British medievalist born on the 9th of September 1943, specializing in Old and Middle English literature as well as modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on J. R. R. Tolkien because he followed nearly the same educational and professional path as Tolkien himself, attending King Edward's School in Birmingham, teaching Old English at Oxford using Tolkien's own syllabus, and occupying Tolkien's former professorial chair at the University of Leeds.
What is The Road to Middle-Earth and why is it important for Tolkien studies?
The Road to Middle-Earth, first published in 1982, is Tom Shippey's landmark scholarly book arguing that J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction was rooted in the tradition of comparative philology founded by Jacob Grimm. It has been called "the single best thing written on Tolkien" and has received over 900 scholarly citations. An enlarged third edition was published in 2005.
Did Tom Shippey ever correspond with J. R. R. Tolkien?
Yes. After Shippey delivered a lecture titled "Tolkien as philologist" on the 11th of November 1969, Tolkien's private secretary Joy Hill obtained the script for Tolkien to read. On the 13th of April 1970, Tolkien sent Shippey a reply written in what Shippey described as the "specialised politeness-language of Old Western Man," which Shippey said took him thirty years to fully decode. The phrase Tolkien used, "course of actual composition," became the title of the final chapter of The Road to Middle-Earth.
What awards has Tom Shippey won for his scholarly work?
Tom Shippey has received three Mythopoeic Awards and one World Fantasy Award. The Road to Middle-Earth won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies in 1984. J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century won the same award in 2001 and also took the World Fantasy Award for Special Award Professional that year. The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies in 2008.
What role did Tom Shippey play in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films?
Tom Shippey assisted the dialect coaches working on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. He also appeared as an expert medievalist commentator on all three documentary DVDs included with the special extended editions of both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies.
Did Tom Shippey write anything other than Tolkien scholarship?
Tom Shippey has written extensively outside Tolkien studies. Under the pseudonym John Holm, he co-authored with Harry Harrison The Hammer and the Cross trilogy of alternate history novels (1993-1996). He edited both The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories and The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories, reviewed science fiction for The Wall Street Journal for ten years, and published Laughing Shall I Die, a 2018 history of the great Vikings, as well as numerous scholarly articles on Beowulf and Old English literature.