Letters from Father Christmas

For more than twenty years, the children of J.R.R. Tolkien received letters from the North Pole — from Father Christmas himself! They told wonderful stories of mischief and disaster, adventures and battles: how the reindeer got loose and scattered presents all over the place, how the accident-prone Polar Bear climbed the North Pole and fell through the roof of Father Christmas's house, and many others.

Now, for the first time, these letters are brought to life with specially arranged holiday music.

Author Biography: J.R.R. Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892. After serving in the First World War, he embarked upon a distinguished career as a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. He is the renowned creator of Middle-earth and author of the great modern classic, The Hobbit, the prelude to his epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. Other works by J.R.R. Tolkien include The Silmarillion. J.R.R. Tolkien died in 1973 at the age of 81.

A collection of illustrated letters from Father Christmas recapping the activities of the preceding year at the North Pole. The letters were written by the author to his children.

J.R.R. TOLKIEN (1892-1973) is the creator of Middle-earth and author of such classic and extraordinary works of fiction as The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings , and The Silmarillion . His books have been translated into more than fifty languages and have sold many millions of copies worldwide.

Biography

His mother died when he was only twelve and both he and his brother were made wards of the local priest and sent to King Edward's School, Birmingham, where Tolkien shine in his classical work. After completing a First in English Language and Literature at Oxford, Tolkien married Edith Bratt. He was also commissioned in the Lancashire Fusiliers and fought in the battle of the Somme. After the war, he obtained a post on the New English Dictionary and began to write the mythological and legendary cycle which he originally called "The Book of Lost Tales" but which eventually became known as The Silmarillion.

In 1920 Tolkien was appointed Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds which was the beginning of a distinguished academic career culminating with his election as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. Meanwhile Tolkien wrote for his children and told them the story of The Hobbit. It was his publisher, Stanley Unwin, who asked for a sequel to The Hobbit and gradually Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings, a huge story that took twelve years to complete and which was not published until Tolkien was approaching retirement. After retirement Tolkien and his wife lived near Oxford, but then moved to Bournemouth. Tolkien returned to Oxford after his wife's death in 1971. He died on 2 September 1973 leaving The Silmarillion to be edited for publication by his son, Christopher.

Author biography courtesy of HarperCollins (UK).