Tolkien has significant influence in the realm of fantasy, and Sir Gawain and other Tolkien works are to be featured in the exhibition. Could you provide some insight into how the exhibition explores Tolkien’s works?

We’re delighted to have some exciting loans to show alongside relevant British Library collections to illustrate the work of Tolkien. We are displaying for the first time a manuscript from the BBC Archives, in which Tolkien advises on the script for a 1955-56 radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Sadly, no recording of the actual production survives so this is a fascinating insight into this, otherwise lost, early adaptation. We also have exciting loans of original artwork, and of an iconic prop from the Peter Jackson films.

We also have an item which may be a little unexpected for Tolkien purists – a 1962 edition of The Hobbit illustrated by Tove Jansson, best known for her Moomin characters. Jansson’s version of Gollum was particularly controversial as he was depicted as a giant troll-like figure. This apparently caused Tolkien to add the word ‘small’ to descriptions of the character in later editions. Tolkien also famously translated Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from Middle English and visitors to the exhibition will be able to see the surviving original of the text, in a beautiful manuscript produced circa 1400.

Fantasy Fiction Through the Ages

Embark on a journey through the history of fantasy writing, from encounters with Anglo-Saxon dragon-slayers to meeting 21st-century adepts of urban magic.

On this six week course, you will be guided through pivotal fantasy texts as well as ever-changing attitudes to the genre. From the storied worlds of Tolkien’s Middle-earth and Pratchett’s Discworld, to lesser-known settings like J. Tullos Henning’s Greenwode, you will explore how fantasy emerged and where it might be going. You’ll learn more about the unique artefacts displayed in our ground-breaking exhibition, Fantasy: Realms of Imagination, in this peek into the academic field of fantasy studies.

Whether you’re looking to inform your own fantasy writing, or simply indulge in your favourite genre with like-minded fans, this is the perfect course to get lost in the fantastic.

Read the full course outline (https://www.bl.uk/events/britishlibrar ... d9bffbbd6f92cc3747.ashx).

This course will run across six dates:

• Thursday 2 November, 18.00 – 20.00
  
• Thursday 9 November, 18.00 – 20.00
  
• Thursday 16 November, 18.00 – 20.00
  
• Thursday 23 November, 18.00 – 20.00
  
• Thursday 30 November, 18.00 – 20.00
  
• Thursday 7 December, 18.00 – 20.00
  

Previous experience
None required. You may wish to bring a laptop or notebook. Laptops are available to borrow, please email [email protected] to book one.

Tutor
Dr Anna Milon is a researcher in speculative fiction and pagan studies, who recently completed her doctoral thesis on environmental narratives in fantasy fiction and Live Action Role-Play at the University of Exeter.

Fantasy Worlds: Visualising Fantasy
Sat 9 Dec 2023, 14:00 - 15:00

Brian and Wendy Froud and Alan Lee in conversation with Terri Windling.

This event will take place in the British Library. It will be simultaneously live streamed on the British Library platform as part of Fantasy Worlds: A Day of Talks online day pass. Tickets may be booked either to attend in person (physical) or to watch on our platform (online) either live or within 48 hours on catch up. Viewing links for the online version will be sent out shortly before the event.

Brian and Wendy Froud and Alan Lee are three of the most celebrated artists in the fantasy world, with The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings amongst their design credits alongside countless books and illustrations.

Brian Froud and Alan Lee collaborated on the bestselling 1978 book Faeries, an illustrated compendium of faerie folklore. Brian was then invited by Jim Henson to be conceptual designer for the cult films The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986) where he met and later married puppet-maker and sculptor Wendy Midener, who was also working on The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth having come from The Empire Strikes Back, where she fabricated and helped puppeteer the original Yoda. Brian's numerous best selling other works include Good Faeries/Bad Faeries and Lady Cottington's Pressed Faery Book, while Wendy has continues to make models and mythic figures and has illustrated The Old Oak Wood series with Terri Windling, as well as collaborating on Trolls Tales and Faeries Tales with Brian.

Alan Lee is globally celebrated for his artwork inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novels, and for his work on the conceptual design of Peter Jackson's film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Together the three artists have created some of the most acclaimed mythic artwork of our time and some of the most well known fantasy images and designs of the recent decades. At this special session the artists join writer and editor Terri Windling to discuss their wonderful creative careers.

Part of Fantasy Worlds: A Day of Talks. For the full day programme and to book day in-person or online passes visit the day page.

Terri Windling is a writer, editor, and folklorist specialising in fantasy and mythic arts. She has published over 40 books, receiving 10 World Fantasy Awards (including the Life Achievement Award in 2022), the Mythopoeic Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFWA Solstice Award. She has edited many of the major fantasy writers in the field; writes fiction for adults and children, nonfiction on fairy tales and faery lore, and a long-running blog on myth, nature, and creativity: Myth & Moor.

“It’s an incredibly vibrant time for the genre”, says the exhibition’s curator Tanya Kirk, and there is less “patronisation” of it now than there was 20 years ago. Fantasy, like detective fiction or science fiction, was once seen as “too popular”, says Dimitra Fimi, a professor of fantasy at the University of Glasgow who consulted on the exhibit. “It’s that anti-democratic argument, ‘too popular to be serious’, which isn’t true. Sometimes things are popular because they’re brilliant, other times they’re popular for other reasons. But it’s not as straightforward as popular equals not complex enough or not good enough.”

The genre has also often been associated with children’s literature and dismissed for similar reasons. Over the last two decades, however, fantasy has undergone a “reappraisal or re-evaluation” by the academy, says Fimi, and the British Library exhibition, along with recent Tolkien-themed shows at the Bodleian and the Bibliothèque National de France, “stamp” the genre with legitimacy, showing that it is “taken seriously by these institutions.”

Trotter wrote:

The exhibition is featured in the latest edition of Amon Hen from the Tolkien Society #302

Tolkien has significant influence in the realm of fantasy, and Sir Gawain and other Tolkien works are to be featured in the exhibition. Could you provide some insight into how the exhibition explores Tolkien’s works?

We’re delighted to have some exciting loans to show alongside relevant British Library collections to illustrate the work of Tolkien. We are displaying for the first time a manuscript from the BBC Archives, in which Tolkien advises on the script for a 1955-56 radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Sadly, no recording of the actual production survives so this is a fascinating insight into this, otherwise lost, early adaptation. We also have exciting loans of original artwork, and of an iconic prop from the Peter Jackson films.

We also have an item which may be a little unexpected for Tolkien purists – a 1962 edition of The Hobbit illustrated by Tove Jansson, best known for her Moomin characters. Jansson’s version of Gollum was particularly controversial as he was depicted as a giant troll-like figure. This apparently caused Tolkien to add the word ‘small’ to descriptions of the character in later editions. Tolkien also famously translated Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from Middle English and visitors to the exhibition will be able to see the surviving original of the text, in a beautiful manuscript produced circa 1400.

Tuor wrote:

Trotter wrote:

The exhibition is featured in the latest edition of Amon Hen from the Tolkien Society #302

Tolkien has significant influence in the realm of fantasy, and Sir Gawain and other Tolkien works are to be featured in the exhibition. Could you provide some insight into how the exhibition explores Tolkien’s works?

We’re delighted to have some exciting loans to show alongside relevant British Library collections to illustrate the work of Tolkien. We are displaying for the first time a manuscript from the BBC Archives, in which Tolkien advises on the script for a 1955-56 radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Sadly, no recording of the actual production survives so this is a fascinating insight into this, otherwise lost, early adaptation. We also have exciting loans of original artwork, and of an iconic prop from the Peter Jackson films.

We also have an item which may be a little unexpected for Tolkien purists – a 1962 edition of The Hobbit illustrated by Tove Jansson, best known for her Moomin characters. Jansson’s version of Gollum was particularly controversial as he was depicted as a giant troll-like figure. This apparently caused Tolkien to add the word ‘small’ to descriptions of the character in later editions. Tolkien also famously translated Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from Middle English and visitors to the exhibition will be able to see the surviving original of the text, in a beautiful manuscript produced circa 1400.

Some questions regarding this: "We are displaying for the first time a manuscript from the BBC Archives, in which Tolkien advises on the script for a 1955-56 radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings."

Has this manuscript page ever been exhibited or published before? Will it be reproduced in a book accompanying the British Library exhibition?