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September/October issue: A Tolkien Jubilee

September/October issue: A Tolkien Jubilee

Sample Content from Our Latest Issue Table of Contents Sample Article 50 Years After the Father's Farewell This September marks...
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July/August Issue: Faith and Fantasy: Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis, Rowling and Other Tellers of Tall Tales
May / June Issue — The Mere Genius of C. S. Lewis

May / June Issue — The Mere Genius of C. S. Lewis

Sample Content from Our Latest Issue Table of Contents Sample Article The Great Divorce: A Novel Answer to an Immodest...
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Sympathy for the Devil?

Is Milton responsible for making the Devil a sympathetic character? Joseph Pearce asks and endeavours to answer this controversial question...  Sympathy for...
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A Dazzling Dozen

Joseph Pearce recommends twelve works of contemporary fiction published in the twenty-first century... A Dazzling Dozen - Joseph Pearce (jpearce.co)
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Celebrating Hobbit Day

Celebrating Tolkien on Hobbit Day... Celebrating Hobbit Day - Joseph Pearce (jpearce.co)
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The St. Austin Review

The St. Austin Review (StAR) is an international journal of Catholic culture, literature, and ideas. In its pages, printed every two months, some of the brightest and most vigorous minds around meet to explore the people, ideas, movements, and events that shape and misshape our world.

A Tolkien Jubilee: A Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration

Sample Article 50 Years after the Father’s Farewell

This September marks the fiftieth anniversary of J. R. R. Tolkien’s voyage to the Blessed Realm. Husband, father, scholar, author, artist—a myriad of titles could not do justice to the man behind the mythology of Middle-earth. However, there is another paternal title some have endeared to the professor: “Father of Fantasy”. Years before the publication of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien delivered an Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He considered his subject, fairy-stories, “one of the highest forms of literature”. The collected manuscripts of his lecture from March 8, 1938, would later appear as the expanded essay, “On Fairy-stories”, which Tolkien believed to be “quite an important work, at least for anyone who thinks me worth considering at all”. But what do readers consider most important in his essay? Many who read the essay reduce it to Tolkien’s work in philology and ignore the genius of his philosophy. Tolkien knew fairy-stories could enchant, delight, and express truth. He was also keenly aware of their noblest ability: conveying Truth.

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How did Tolkien's Catholic faith inspire his work? Tolkien the Catholic - Joseph Pearce (jpearce.co)

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