Tales from the Perilous Realm

j.r.r. tolkien

'Four classic tales from the author of The Hobbit The fat and unheroic Farmer Giles of Ham is called upon to do battle with the dragon Chrysophylax: Niggle the painter sets out to paint the perfect tree: Hobbits, princesses, dwarves and trolls partake in the adventures of Tom Bombadil: and Smith of Wootton Major journeys to the land of Faery via the magical ingredients of a giant cake. This definitive collection of J.R.R. Tolkien's acclaimed short stories and poems reaffirms his status as a master storyteller for readers young and old. FARMER GILES OF HAM 1949 A fabulous tale of the days when giants and dragons walked the kingdom - SUNDAY TIMES LEAF BY NIGGLE 1964 A haunting and successful demonstration of the qualities of faerie - NEW YORK TIMES THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BOMBADIL 1961 Something close to genius - THE LISTENER SMITH OF WOOTTON MAJOR 1967 Whoever reads it at eight will no doubt still be going back to it at eighty - NEW STATESMAN

Genres fantasyfictionshort storiesclassicspoetryhigh fantasyadventureaudiobookscience fiction fantasyepic fantasy

178 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1997

This edition

Format: 178 pages, Paperback
Published: September 2, 2002 by HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780007149124
ASIN: 0007149123
Language: English

Characters More characters

About the author

j.r.r. tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets.

Tolkien's most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by ancient and extraordinary peoples. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal, humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal.

Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist who painted for pleasure and relaxation. He excelled at landscapes and often drew inspiration from his own stories. He illustrated many scenes from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sometimes drawing or painting as he was writing in order to visualize the imagined scene more clearly.

Tolkien was a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for almost forty years, teaching Old and Middle English, as well as Old Norse and Gothic. His illuminating lectures on works such as the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, illustrate his deep knowledge of ancient languages and at the same time provide new insights into peoples and legends from a remote past.

Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892 to English parents. He came to England aged three and was brought up in and around Birmingham. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1915 and saw active service in France during the First World War before being invalided home. After the war he pursued an academic career teaching Old and Middle English. Alongside his professional work, he invented his own languages and began to create what he called a mythology for England; it was this ‘legendarium' that he would work on throughout his life. But his literary work did not start and end with Middle-earth, he also wrote poetry, children's stories and fairy tales for adults. He died in 1973 and is buried in Oxford where he spent most of his adult life.