About this Book

What you have in your hands is a book about ideas and attitudes. Specifically, it's a collection of related essays about the grand themes that run though the works of J.R.R. Tolkien - the nature of evil, the use and abuse of power, the joys and sorrows of living, the need for heroes both great and small. In these pages we'll have a look at what was on Tolkien's mind during his productive years as a fiction writer - no small task - but by organizing the book around these few large "umbrella" themes, the job becomes more manageable. The major themes of society are all there, traced across the topography of Middle-earth and its connected environments. - Publisher.