The Monsters and the Critics

The complete collection of Tolkien’s essays, including two on Beowulf, which span three decades beginning six years before The Hobbit to five years after The Lord of the Rings.The seven essays by J.R.R. Tolkien assembled in this edition were with one exception delivered as general lectures on particular occasions; and while they mostly arose out of Tolkien’s work in medieval literature, they are accessible to all. Two of them are concerned with Beowulf, including the well-known lecture whose title is taken for this book, and one with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, given in the University of Glasgow in 1953.Also included in this volume is the lecture ‘English and Welsh’;…