Raymond Edwards is a freelance writer, editor and part-time bookseller. He worked for some years as a researcher for the Oxford English Dictionary whilst completing doctoral research into medieval manuscripts. Before this he followed the Oxford undergraduate course originally devised by Tolkien. Edwards has written for various publications, including The Tablet, The Times Literary Supplement, The Catholic Herald, and the Literary Review. He has published a number of short books, on the Reformation in England, Catholic Traditionalism, and Tolkien, as well as providing the English translation for Henry Harclay's Ordinary Questions. He lives in north London with his wife, children and an improbable number of books.
'A brilliantly woven narrative of Tolkien's life. The biographer, also a philologist by training, knows what he is talking about, his judgements are reasonable and he makes the reader anxious to discover whether Tolkien can win out against the enemies of his most original work. It would be hard to write a better life without access to the many letters and private papers in the Bodleian still not available to scholars. I suppose the readers need a certain curiosity about Tolkien to appreciate the "inherent interest" of Oxford syllabus reform; but Edwards' explanation of academic life there in the mid twentieth century is of real value, since that was Tolkien's primary world, when he was not escaping it.' The Tablet
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
