Tolkien, Self and Other

Jane Chance is the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor Emerita in English at Rice University, USA, and a recipient of an honorary doctorate of letters from Purdue University (2013). Author of twenty-five books and over a hundred articles and reviews, she has received Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships, among others, as well as membership at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, a Rockefeller Foundation residency at Bellagio, and book and article prizes for her work.

• Introduction:   “This Queer Creature”.- Chapter 1: Forlorn and Abject: Tolkien and His Earliest Writings (1914-1924).- Chapter 2: Bilbo as Sigurd in the Fairy-Story Hobbit (1920-1927).- Chapter 3: Tolkien's Fairy-Story Beowulfs (1926-1940s).- Chapter 4: “Queer Endings” After Beowulf: The Fall of Arthur (1931-1934).- Chapter 5: Apartheid in Tolkien: Chaucer and The Lord of the Rings, Books 1-3.- Chapter 6: “Usually Slighted”: Gudrún, Other Medieval Women, and The Lord of the Rings, Book 3 (1925-1943).- Chapter 7: The Failure of Masculinity: The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth (1920), Sir Gawain (1925), and The Lord of the Rings, Books 3-6 (1943-1948).- Conclusion: The Ennoblement of the Humble: The History of Middle-earth.

“Deal with Tolkien’s own life experience with otherness and examine how that experience informed reflections of otherness in his writing. … the book features a prominent dedication to Chance as well as a vintage photo opposite its table of contents. … deserve a place on the bookshelves of Tolkien scholars and serious fans.” (Jason Fisher, Mythlore, Vol. 37 (2), 2019)