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.

“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)

• 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.