J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century

J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century is the second major work of Tolkien scholarship by Tom Shippey, published in 2000 by Houghton Mifflin. It is a study of facets of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion in contexts of the era J.R.R. Tolkien conceived them in.

Shippey makes argumentation for Tolkien and his works’ distinguished places above their contemporaries. The book earned Shippey the Mythopoeic Society’s Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies.

J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century is technically a “synchronic” follow-up to Shippey’s earlier book The Road to Middle-earth, which is a philological analysis of mostly the same content.