I enjoyed this biography that was very informative and included so many elements of J.R.R. Tolkien’s life. While at times the allusions to his work went over my head as I am only a light fan of the epic trilogy, I enjoyed learning about his family and life. I thought it was a skilled expose that was rather unbiased and included some of the unsavory parts of his personality as well as the more honorable parts which was refreshing.

I am a big fan of The Lord of the Rings and have read most of Tolkien's works. I always thought I knew a lot about him, but I learned so much about his personal life and childhood in ways that I am utterly delighted by. his was obviously written by a fan of Tolkien's works, which is key. I really appreciated how unbias the author explores Tolkien - his relationship with his wife, Edith, and his friendships but also his possible antisemitic and racist views.

A must-read for all true Tolkien fans!

Big thanks to Pen & Sword (White Owl) and NetGalley for the ARC for my honest review. I will certainly buy a physical copy!

I read the authorised biography of Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter when it first came out, which is a long time ago.
Since then interest in Tolkien has increased with the Peter Jackson films, upcoming Amazon series and from a biographical point of view, the more recent Tolkien biopic.

The author of this book sets out his stall early
"to engage in literary criticism and respectfully critical biography, is to go from passive consumers to active listeners... " Xander links parts of Tolkien's life with the texts he wrote. For example he links the friendships between the four hobbits (who are part of the Fellowship ) with the friends Tolkien formed in the TCBS, or “Tea Club, Barrovian Society".
He describes the changes that constantly came to Tolkien in his childhood which resulted in frequent moves and hard times. In this his mother, Mabel, emerges more prominently than I remember from the Carpenter biography. There seems to be less emphasis on the language side and more on the traumatic events including the changes incurred through religious conversion.

Xander is critical of Tolkien "As unpleasant as it might be to shine a light on the more troubling aspects of Tolkien, it is necessary: a biography is not a portrait, it should not smooth away flaws, but rather note them to create as accurate and whole an image of the subject as possible"


"Flaws" that Xander focuses on include his attitude towards women (although he attributes some of this to the male environments in which Tolkien found himself.) Also xenophobia (despite his travels)
I was less convinced by the claims of antisemitism in how he links this to the texts . It's up to the reader to make their own judgments here.

In some ways Edith, Tolkien's wife was a "minor" character in the Carpenter book and Xander goes some way to addressing this. She too was an orphan and her relationship with Tolkien dragged her away from environments/ places where she felt happiest. Of course career choices were sadly limited for women of her time but class differences also played a part in Edith's isolation.

What shone through was how important their role as parents was to both of them (especially in view of their own upbringings as orphans) The warmth of the family time they spent together is reflected in this book as it was in the Oxford Bodleian exhibition of recent years.

A new revelation for me was how Tolkien had been a candidate (due to his philological background) for code breaking operations during World War 2 ., although this is still surrounded by secrecy.

Xander is not shy of pointing out that in the publication of his books he had several advantages including "rave" reviews from his friend C.S.Lewis.

" he is the textbook example of someone whose elevated societal position allowed him to flourish to the fullest capacity. It would be disingenuous to present him as a simple man with a vision and a lot of luck; he had ample societal benefits in front of him, and because of them, how work was able to reach a large audience many others could not"

There is an additional chapter on allegations of child sexual abuse involving the eldest son, John, which the author sensitively prefaces with a warning
"given that this is a topic that carries a huge amount of trauma for many, I thought it appropriate to lace a warning here"


Overall it was a satisfying biography that adds new aspects to Carpenter's authorised biography. New spotlights were shone upon the women in Tolkien's life and the revelation about World War 2 was a very interesting revelation. Perfect reading for all Tolkien fans.

Unfortunately, while this book had potential, it felt a little too academic at times. More of an essay than a biography, and while I am very interested in Tolkien and his life beyond the books that are so well known, it was still a struggle for me to finish this one. Still, there was a lot of interesting information in this one, and I believe that many people will enjoy it, especially if they are looking for a deeper look at Tolkien's life.

Precisa, dettagliata, approfondita, questa biografia permette di conoscere Tolkien come studioso e come uomo, prima che come creatore di mondi fantastici.
Un ottimo punto di partenza per chi voglia andare oltre le opere, verso la persona.

I recently re-read the Hobbit and looked forward to knowing more about Tolkien. In that respect, Xander came through for me, as I knew only a few elementary facts about him prior to reading the book. Tolkien's life is superficially reviewed from his birth to his death but with not much more information than could be gleaned from a reasonably good Wikipedia article. With a title like this a prospective reader would have reason to believe that the author had uncovered much new material that would substantially add to what is already known about one of the the twentieth century's most famous writers. His material comes from secondary sources with the exception of published letters from Tolkien and transcripts of interviews.

Xander might be forgiven for his lack of initiative if he had presented a comprehensive synthesis of existing material. Unfortunately much of the book is taken up by references to Tolkien's Middle Earth canon and require a familiarity with it akin to a Southern Baptist minister's knowledge of the New Testament. The narrative proceeds in a herky-jerky motion for this reason. This is the product of someone who clearly loves his subject and this book, with some more editing, would be a very good companion for book clubs reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I enjoyed the book. It reads well and it doesn't feel lengthy or boring. However, it felt more like a dissertation than a biography... and it didn't bring anything new to the table. If this is meant for Tolkien fans, then rest assure they have already read Tolkien's biography by H. Carpenter (which is as thorough as possibly). Having said that, true fans will read this book all the same but they are likely to get a bit disappointed by it.

As someone who is a huge fan of the Hobbit and Lord of the Ring trilogy books and movies and Samurian, I had to request and the read this! This is more than a biography of JRR Tolkien, it is also about his innermost thinking about the worlds in these books. I hope he would have been proud of the movie adaptations because Peter Jackson tried to hold true the books as much as possible.

This is a must read for any fan of his books regardless of you liked in them I was unable to put this down because of all the above reasons. I highly recommend this to bring magic and fantasy back in to the reading of these books. I liked this so much, I am getting a hard copy at publishing.

Thank you to the Pen & Sword White Owl for granting my wish and giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. As well as Netgalley for having this biography of JRR Tolkein by Jesse Xander, who is also an obsessed fan of his work. I really appreciate this!

Available: 2/2/21

I really liked this biography! It was incredibly thorough for such a short book. I am a big fan of The Lord of the Rings and have read most of Tolkien's works. I also thought that I knew a lot about his life already; he was a linguist like me, so I always admired him (yes, I am one of those fans who's spent hours studying Sindarin and Quenyan). But I learned a lot about Tolkien's childhood and personal life. This was obviously written by a fan of Tolkien's works, which makes a big difference in my opinion. It was simultaneously respectful towards Tolkien and his creations while also taking a not-often seen view of some of Tolkien's less-desirable qualities, such as possible antisemitism and racism. I also really appreciated the details about his wife Edith and friendships with other writers and academics. A great book that I highly recommend, if a little dense at times. It read more like a dissertation than a biography, which is the reason for 4 instead of 5 stars.

I received an advance copy of, The Real J.R.R. Tolkien, by Jesse Xander. I really wanted to like this book, but I found it dull and boring.