29 Facts About Tom Shippey

Thomas Alan Shippey was born on 9 September 1943 and is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction.

Tom Shippey is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the works of JR R Tolkien about whom he has written several books and many scholarly papers.

Tom Shippey has received three Mythopoeic Awards and a World Fantasy Award.

Tom Shippey participated in the creation of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, assisting the dialect coaches.

Tom Shippey featured as an expert medievalist in all three of the documentary DVDs that accompany the special extended edition of the trilogy, and later that of The Hobbit film trilogy.

Thomas Alan Tom Shippey was born in 1943 to the engineer Ernest Tom Shippey and his wife Christina Emily Kjelgaard in Calcutta, British India, where he spent the first years of his life.

Tom Shippey studied at King Edward's School in Birmingham from 1954 to 1960.

Tom Shippey became a junior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, and then a Fellow of St John's College, Oxford, where he taught Old and Middle English.

In 1996, after 14 years at Leeds, Shippey was appointed to the Walter J Ong Chair of Humanities at Saint Louis University's College of Arts and Sciences, where he taught, researched, and wrote books.

Tom Shippey was a visiting professor at Harvard University, the University of Texas, and Signum University.

Tom Shippey has published over 160 books and articles, and has edited or co-edited scholarly collections such as the 1998 Beowulf: The Critical Heritage and the 2005 Studies in Medievalism.

Tom Shippey has written invited forewords to books on medieval England, such as Beowulf and Other Old English Poems.

Tom Shippey has written on Arthurian legend, including its reworkings in medieval and modern literature.

Under the pseudonym of "Tom Allen", Shippey has written two stories that were published in anthologies edited by Peter Weston.

For Harrison's 1984 West of Eden, Tom Shippey helped with the constructed language, Yilane.

Tom Shippey has edited both The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories, and The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories.

Tom Shippey has given many invited lectures on Tolkien and other topics.

In late 1969 or early 1970, Tom Shippey wrote his first academic work on Tolkien.

Tom Shippey then delivered a speech at a Tolkien day organised by a student association at the University of Birmingham.

When he became a Fellow of St John's College that same year, Tom Shippey taught Old and Middle English using Tolkien's syllabus.

Tom Shippey's first printed essay, "Creation from Philology in The Lord of the Rings", expanded on his 1970 lecture.

Tom Shippey noted that his office at Leeds, like Tolkien's, was just off Woodhouse Lane, a name that in his view Tolkien would certainly have interpreted as a trace of the woodwoses, the wild men of the woods "lurking in the hills above the Aire".

Tom Shippey married Susan Veale in 1966; after that marriage ended, he married Catherine Elizabeth Barton in 1993.

Tom Shippey retired in 2008, and now lives in Dorset.

Tom Shippey has appeared in several television documentaries, in which he spoke about Tolkien and his Middle-earth writings:.

Tom Shippey participated in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he assisted the dialect coaches.

Tom Shippey was featured on all three of the documentary DVDs that accompany the special extended edition of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and later that of The Hobbit film trilogy.

Tom Shippey summarized his experiences with the film project as follows:.

Apart from his published books, Tom Shippey has written a large number of scholarly articles.