Illustrated Blog Posts

Elegant, gallant, beloved Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen's most sparkling novel, with a plot that moves like a swift, crystal-clear...

By the time Merry and Pippin escape from their orc captors, things have gotten quite momentous and arduous in The Lord of the Rings. But...

"I will take your gift, O Bilbo the Magnificent!" said the king gravely. "And I name you elf-friend and blessed..." - The Hobbit, Chapter...

For many readers, Tolkien offers a lavish, if temporary, escape from our increasingly-utilitarian culture into a realm of visual riches....

It's a fascinating cultural development that just as tech giants are threatening to replace millennia of human history in the arts with...

Because many readers first encounter Gandalf through hobbit eyes, our lasting idea of him may be of a great, powerful figure, sometimes...

"'...You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after...

Hobbits are good at games of skill, elves can be lore-masters, and in Tolkien's legendarium, "riddling talk" is not only irresistible to...

"What's come of his weskit? I don't hold with wearing ironmongery, whether it wears well or no," says the Gaffer of Sam's gilded mail...

Calling all Lobelia Sackville-Baggins fans! It's only in becoming more involved in the Tolkien community that I have realized the great...

J.R.R. Tolkien once told an interviewer that his regard for trees extended to him longing to make contact with one and see how it feels...

"It is said that the towers of Emyn Beraid were not built indeed by the Exiles of Númenor, but were raised by Gil-galad for Elendil, his...

It takes a special kind of eucatastrophe to bring about any alleviation of trauma, and in J.R.R. Tolkien's writing of Éowyn and Faramir,...

"I still feel the picture incomplete without something on Samwise and Elanor, but I could not devise anything that would not have...

Only J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis could ever truly know the full contents of their friendship, yet the footsteps of these 20th century...

The Roots of Real Romance I know I'm not alone in cherishing the tale of Beren and Lúthien for its connection to the lived love story of...

When the "Scouring of the Shire" is at an end and Sam Gamgee has sprinkled the earth of Lothlórien all about his homeland, a spring of...

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a perpetual font of inspiration for devoted readers, its Third Age wisdom evergreen in any era....

Ósanwe is the practice in J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium via which powerful figures can communicate in thought. It is an ability possessed...

A first-time Tolkien reader might almost miss it. The Fellowship of the Ring is moving along at its unhurried pace across the Shire. The...