Tom Shippey

2025-04-22T08:15:44Z

2600:6C44:68F0:51C0:9C10:8322:F829:EE10: /* Tolkien scholarship */ typo

{{Short description|British medievalist (born 1943)}}
{{good article}}
{{EngvarB|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2021}}
{{Infobox academic
| name = Tom Shippey
| image = Tom Shippey by Gage Skidmore.jpg
| alt =
| caption = In 2015
| birth_name = Thomas Alan Shippey
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|df=yes|1943|09|09}}
| birth_place = [[Calcutta]], [[British Raj|British India]]
| death_date = 
| death_place =
| nationality = British
| alma_mater = [[Queens' College, Cambridge]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]], [[MA (Cantab)|M.A.]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]])
| education = [[King Edward's School, Birmingham]]
| occupation = Academic and writer
| known_for = [[Tolkien research|Tolkien scholarship]]
| workplaces = [[University of Birmingham]]<br>[[St John's College, Oxford]]<br>[[University of Leeds]]<br>[[Saint Louis University]]
| website = https://tomshippey.com/
}}

'''Thomas Alan Shippey''' (born 9 September 1943)<ref name="SFE"/> is a British [[medievalism|medievalist]], a retired scholar of [[Middle English literature|Middle]] and [[Old English literature]] as well as of modern [[fantasy fiction|fantasy]] and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts<ref name="Houghton Croft Martsch 2014"/> on the works of [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] about whom he has written several books and many scholarly papers. His book ''[[The Road to Middle-Earth]]'' has been called "the single best thing written on Tolkien".<ref name="Nagy2005"/>

Shippey's education and academic career have in several ways retraced those of Tolkien: he attended [[King Edward's School, Birmingham]], became a professional [[philologist]], occupied Tolkien's professorial chair at the University of Leeds, and taught [[Old English language|Old English]] at the University of Oxford to the syllabus that Tolkien had devised.

He has received three [[Mythopoeic Society|Mythopoeic Awards]]<ref name="Myth 1984"/><ref name="Myth 2001"/><ref name="Myth 2008"/> and a [[World Fantasy Award]].<ref name="WFA 2001"/> He participated in the creation of [[Peter Jackson]]'s [[The Lord of the Rings (film series)|''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy]], assisting the dialect coaches. He featured as an expert medievalist in all three of the documentary DVDs that accompany the special extended edition of the trilogy, and later also that of ''The Hobbit'' film trilogy.

== Biography ==

=== Early life ===

Thomas Alan Shippey was born in 1943 to the engineer Ernest Shippey and his wife Christina Emily Kjelgaard in [[Calcutta]], [[British Raj|British India]], where he spent the first years of his life.<ref name="SFE">{{Cite web |last=Clute |first=John |date=12 August 2013 |title=Shippey, Tom |url=http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/shippey_tom |access-date=22 October 2013 |website=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |edition=3rd online}}</ref><ref name="Hanley">{{Cite web |last=Hanley |first=Paul |date=8 February 2008 |title=Let us introduce you to ... Thomas Shippey, PhD |url=http://www.unewsonline.com/?p=9331 |newspaper=The University News}}</ref><ref name="encyc"/> He studied at [[King Edward's School, Birmingham|King Edward's School]] in Birmingham from 1954 to 1960.<ref name="Preface">{{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |title=[[The Road to Middle-Earth]] |date=2005 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0-261-10275-0 |edition=Third |at=Preface to the Third Edition, pages xvii–xxi |author-link=Tom Shippey |orig-date=1982}}</ref>

Like [[J. R. R. Tolkien]], Shippey became fond of [[Old English]], [[Old Norse]], German and [[Latin]], and of playing [[Rugby football|rugby]].<ref name="Hanley"/><ref name="Houghton Croft Martsch 2014"/> He gained a B.A. from [[Queens' College, Cambridge]], in 1964, his M.A. in 1968, and a PhD in 1970.<ref name="white"/><ref name="SLU CV"/><ref name="encyc">{{Cite web |title=Shippey, T(homas) A(lan) 1943- |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/shippey-thomas-alan-1943 |access-date=28 November 2021 |publisher=Encyclopedia.com}}</ref>

=== Medievalist ===

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]].<ref name="Preface"/> In 1979, he was elected to the Chair of English Language and Medieval English Literature at [[Leeds University]], a post once held by Tolkien.<ref>{{cite news |last=Hickes |first=Martin |date=10 September 2010 |title=JRR Tolkien and his overlooked connections with Leeds |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/leeds/2010/sep/10/jrr-tolkien-lord-of-the-rings-leeds}}</ref> 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.<ref name="SLU CV"/> He has been a visiting professor at [[Harvard University]], the [[University of Texas at Austin|University of Texas]], and [[Signum University]].<ref name="Signum">{{cite web |title=Tom Shippey |url=https://signumuniversity.org/directory/tom-shippey/ |access-date=24 November 2021 |publisher=[[Signum University]]}}</ref>

He has published over 160 books and articles,<ref>See [https://tomshippey.com complete list at tomshippey.com]: many of these works are now available online.</ref> and has edited or co-edited scholarly collections such as the 1998 ''Beowulf: The Critical Heritage''<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Haarder |editor1-first=Andreas |editor2-last=Shippey |editor2-first=Tom |title=Beowulf | publisher=[[Routledge]] | date=15 August 2005 | isbn=978-1-134-97094-0 | doi=10.4324/9780203979457 | page=}}</ref> and in 2005 ''The Shadow-walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous''.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Shippey |editor1-first=Tom |editor2-last=Arnold |editor2-first=Martin |title=Studies in Medievalism (XIV) |date=2005 |publisher=[[D. S. Brewer]] |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-1-84384-063-3}}</ref> Among several influential articles on the Old English poem ''[[Beowulf]]'' are an analysis of its principles of conversation,<ref>{{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |editor1-last=Fox |editor1-first=Gwyneth |editor2-last=Hoey |editor2-first=Michael |editor3-last=Sinclair |editor3-first=John M. |title=Techniques of Description |date=1993 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=London |isbn=978-0-203-16809-7 |chapter=Principles of Conversation in Beowulf}}</ref> a much-cited discussion of the "obdurate puzzle" of the "[[Modthryth]]o Episode" (''Beowulf'' 1931b–1962), which seems to describe a cruel irrational queen who then becomes a model wife,<ref>{{cite web |last=Shippey |first=Tom |title=Wicked Queens and Cousin Strategies in Beowulf and Elsewhere |url=https://www.medievalists.net/2009/05/wicked-queens-and-cousin-strategies-in-beowulf-and-elsewhere/ |website=Medievalists.net |access-date=24 June 2022 |date=2001}}</ref> and an analysis of "Names in Anglo-Saxon and Beowulf", with special reference to those elsewhere unrecorded. He has also written on [[Arthurian legend]], including its reworkings in medieval and modern literature.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Shippey |first=Tom |title=Alternate Historians: Newt, Kingers, Harry, And Me |journal=[[Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts]] |date=1997 |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=15–33 |jstor=43308277}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |editor-last=Fulton |editor-first=Helen |title=A Companion to Arthurian Literature |date=2012 |publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell]] |location=Chichester |isbn=978-1-4051-5789-6 |chapter=Historical Fiction and the Post-Imperial Arthur}}</ref> His medieval studies have extended as far as to write a book on the lives and deaths of the great [[Vikings]] "as warriors, invaders and plunderers", exploring their "heroic mentality", with special reference to the pervasive Norse Bad Sense of Humour..<ref name="Lönnroth 2019"/> The Swedish author [[Lars Lönnroth]] commented that nothing like Shippey's "eminently readable book" had been attempted since [[Thomas Bartholin]]'s 1677 history of Danish antiquity, even if Shippey's use of legendary sources meant that the materials used could not be relied upon as history, only as indications of a shared mindset.<ref name="Lönnroth 2019">{{cite journal |last=Lönnroth |first=Lars |author-link=Lars Lönnroth |title=Laughing Shall I Die. Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings by Tom Shippey |journal=Saga-Book |date=2019 |volume=43 |pages=158–160 |jstor=48617225}}</ref> See further "Vikings: Legend, History, Mindset", online at academia.edu

Since his retirement and his return to England, he has continued his research<ref>See [https://uppsalabooks.com uppsalabooks.com], which lists his video appearances on social media.</ref> His retirement in 2008 was marked by a ''[[festschrift]]'', ''Constructing Nations, Reconstructing Myth'', edited by Andrew Wawn, Graham Johnson and John Walter, with contributions from former students and former colleagues. His Tolkien scholar colleagues including [[Janet Brennan Croft]], [[John D. Rateliff]], [[Verlyn Flieger]], [[David Bratman]], [[Marjorie Burns]], and [[Richard C. West]] marked his 70th birthday with a further ''festschrift'', ''Tolkien in the New Century'',<ref name="Houghton Croft Martsch 2014"/> while another volume of essays by former colleagues and students, ''Literary Speech Acts of the Medieval North'': ''essays inspired by the works of T.A. Shippey'', came out in 2020, edited by Eric Bryan and Alexander Ames.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bryan |first1=Eric |last2=Ames |first2=Alexander |title=Literary Speech Acts of the Medieval North: Essays inspired by the works of T.A. Shippey |year=2020 |publisher=Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies |isbn=978-0-86698-610-6}}</ref>

=== Modern fantasy and science fiction ===

A fan and follower of science fiction from teenage years, in the early 1980s Shippey worked with [[Brian Aldiss]] with the concept of world-building in his Helliconia trilogy.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tom Shippeys's Introduction to Helliconia |url=https://brianaldiss.co.uk/writing/novels/novels-h-l/helliconia/#shippey |website=Brian Aldiss Official Website}}</ref>

Under the pseudonym of "John Holm", he was the co-author, with [[Harry Harrison (writer)|Harry Harrison]], of ''The Hammer and the Cross'' trilogy of [[Alternate history (fiction)|alternate history]] novels, consisting of ''[[The Hammer and the Cross]]'' (1993), ''[[One King's Way]]'' (1995), and ''[[King and Emperor]]'' (1996).<ref name="SFE"/> For Harrison's 1984 ''[[West of Eden]]'', Shippey helped with the [[constructed language]], Yilanè.<ref name="Harrison 2014">{{cite book |last=Harrison |first=Harry |title=Harry Harrison! Harry Harrison!: it seemed like a good idea at the time |publisher=Tor, A Tom Doherty Associates Book |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-7653-3308-7 |at=West of Eden |oclc=889324087 |author-link=Harry Harrison (writer)}}</ref>

Shippey has edited both ''[[The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories]]'', and ''The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories''.<ref name="wsj"/> For ten years he reviewed science fiction for ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'',<ref name="wsj">{{cite web |title=Shippey's WSJ reviews |url=https://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=TOM+SHIPPEY&bylinesearch=true}}</ref> and still contributes literary reviews to the ''[[London Review of Books]]''.<ref name="SLU CV"/>
In 2009, he wrote a scholarly 21-page introduction to ''Flights of Eagles'', a collection of [[James Blish]]'s works.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Blish |first=James |title=Flights of Eagles |date=2009 |publisher=[[NESFA Press]] |isbn=978-1-886778-86-3 |editor-last=Shippey |editor-first=Tom |edition=1st |author-link=James Blish}}</ref> He has given many invited lectures on Tolkien and other topics.<ref name="SLU CV"/> In 2008 he brought out a collection of articles on SF and fantasy, ''Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction,'' freely available from academia.edu.

=== Tolkien scholarship ===

{{further|Tolkien research}}

Shippey's interest in Tolkien began when he was 14 years old and was lent a copy of ''[[The Hobbit]]''.<ref name="white">{{Cite web |last=White |first=Claire E. |title=Talking Tolkien With Thomas Shippey |url=http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/mar02/shippey.htm |access-date=24 November 2021 |website=The Internet Writing Journal}}</ref> Shippey comments on his interest in Tolkien that

{{blockquote|Purely by accident, I followed in Tolkien's footsteps in several respects: as a schoolboy (we both went to King Edward's School, Birmingham), as rugby player (we both played for Old Edwardians), as a teacher at Oxford (I taught Old English for seven years at St. John's College, just overlapping with Tolkien's last years of retirement), and as Professor of English Language at Leeds (where I inherited Tolkien's chair and syllabus)."<ref name="SLU CV">{{Cite web |last=Shippey |first=Tom |date=2020 |title=Personal Statement |url=https://www.slu.edu/arts-and-sciences/english/pdfs/shippeyvita2020.pdf |access-date=24 November 2021 |publisher=[[Saint Louis University]]}}</ref>}}

[[File:Tower, spires, chimneys, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds (Taken by Flickr user 28th January 2013).jpg|thumb|Both Shippey and [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] were professors at [[Leeds University]], with offices near Woodhouse Lane (pictured), a placename that Shippey thought Tolkien would have taken as a trace of the [[woodwose]]s, the wild men of the woods.<ref name="Woodwose"/>]]

On 11 November 1969, he delivered a lecture on "Tolkien as philologist" at a Tolkien day organised by the Adult Education Department at the [[University of Birmingham]]. Joy Hill, Tolkien's private secretary, was in the audience and afterward, she asked him for the script, for Tolkien to read. On 13 April 1970, Shippey received a letter from Tolkien in response; he records that it took him 30 years to decode the "specialised politeness-language of Old Western Man" in which Tolkien replied to Shippey's interpretations of his work, even though, Shippey writes, he speaks the same language himself. Tolkien wrote, hinting that Shippey was "''nearly''" (italics supplied by Shippey) always correct but that Tolkien had not had the time to tell him about his design as it "''may be found'' in a large ''finished'' work, and the ''actual'' events or experiences as seen or felt by the waking mind ''in the course of actual composition'' [i.e. [[Tolkien's legendarium|Tolkien's then-unpublished legendarium]]]";<ref name="Preface"/> Shippey used the phrase "Course of actual composition" as the title of the final chapter of ''The Road to Middle-earth''.<ref name="ch 9">{{Cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |title=[[The Road to Middle-Earth]] |date=2005 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0-261-10275-0 |edition=Third |at=ch. 9 "The Course of Actual Composition" |author-link=Tom Shippey |orig-date=1982}}</ref>

Shippey and Tolkien met later in 1972 when Shippey was invited for dinner by [[Norman Davis (academic)|Norman Davis]], who had succeeded Tolkien as the [[Merton Professors|Merton Professor of English Language]]. When he became a Fellow of [[St John's College, Oxford|St. John's College]] that same year, Shippey taught Old and Middle English using Tolkien's syllabus.<ref name="Preface"/>

Shippey's first printed essay on Tolkien, "Creation from Philology in ''The Lord of the Rings''", expanded on his 1970 lecture. In 1979, he was elected into a former position of Tolkien's, the Chair of English Language and Medieval English Literature at [[Leeds University]]. He 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 [[woodwose]]s, the wild men of the woods "lurking in the hills above the [[River Aire|Aire]]".<ref name="Woodwose">{{Cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |title=The Road to Middle-Earth |date=2005 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0-261-10275-0 |edition=Third |page=74, footnote |author-link=Tom Shippey |orig-date=1982}}</ref>

His first Tolkien book, ''[[The Road to Middle-earth]]'', was published in 1982. In this he attempted to set Tolkien in the tradition of comparative philology, a discipline founded by Jacob Grimm, which he regarded as the major source of Tolkien's inspiration. In 2000, however, he published ''Tolkien: Author of the Century'', in which he attempted also to set Tolkien in the context of his own time: "writing fantasy, but voicing in that fantasy the most pressing and most immediately relevant issues of the whole monstrous twentieth century – questions of industrialised warfare, the origin of evil, the nature of humanity". This would include writers [[The Great War and Middle-earth#Shippey|affected by war]] like [[Kurt Vonnegut]], [[William Golding]], and [[George Orwell]].<ref name="Preface"/> An enlarged third edition of ''Road to Middle-earth'' was published in 2005; in its preface Shippey states that he had assumed (wrongly) that the 1982 book would be his last word on the subject, and in the text he sets out his view, stated at more length in ''Author of the Century'', that "the ''Lord of the Rings'' in particular is a war-book, also a post-war book", comparing Tolkien's writing to that of other twentieth-century authors.<ref name="Preface"/><ref name="Traumatised">{{Cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |title=The Road to Middle-Earth |date=2005 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0-261-10275-0 |edition=Third |pages=100–101, 371, 374–375 |author-link=Tom Shippey |orig-date=1982}}</ref> ''Road'' rigorously refutes what was then the long-running [[Literary hostility to J. R. R. Tolkien|literary hostility to Tolkien]], and explains to instinctive lovers of ''Lord of the Rings'' why they are right to like it.<ref name="Yates 1984">{{Cite journal |last=Yates |first=Jessica |date=1984 |title=The Road Goes Ever On |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol9/iss4/15 |journal=[[Mythlore]] |volume=9 |issue=4 |at=article 15}}</ref> It has been described as "the single best thing written on Tolkien", and "the seminal monograph".<ref name="Nagy2005">{{Cite journal |last=Nagy |first=Gergely |author-link=Gergely Nagy (scholar) |year=2005 |title=The Road to Middle-earth, Revised and Expanded Edition (review) |journal=Tolkien Studies |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=258–261 |doi=10.1353/tks.2005.0026 |s2cid=170416664 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=GoodKnight |first=Glen |author-link=Glen GoodKnight |date=1993 |title=The Road Goes Ever On |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol19/iss3/14 |journal=[[Mythlore]] |volume=19 |issue=3 |at=article 14}}</ref> The book has received over 900 scholarly citations.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tom Shippey |url=https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?as_vis=1&q=Tom+Shippey&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 |access-date=28 May 2022 |website=Google Scholar}}</ref> Both ''Road'' and ''Author'' have been often reprinted and translated. In 2000, [[Michael D. C. Drout|Michael Drout]] and H. Wynne looked back at Shippey's books as landmarks in Tolkien research; they comment that "The real brilliance of ''Road'' was in method: Shippey would relentlessly gather small philological facts and combine them into unassailable logical propositions; part of the pleasure of reading ''Road'' lies in watching all these pieces fall into place and Shippey's larger arguments materialize out of the welter of interesting detail."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Drout |first1=M. D. |last2=Wynne |first2=H. |year=2000 |title=Tom Shippey's JRR Tolkien: Author of the Century and a look back at Tolkien criticism since 1982 |journal=Envoi |volume=9 |issue=2 |url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f0131cce-4e2e-4ac6-9d86-5bd7df17ed40/files/rsx61dm627}}</ref>

As an acknowledged expert on Tolkien, Shippey served for a while on the editorial board of [[Tolkien Studies|''Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review'']].<ref name="wsj"/> [[Gergely Nagy (scholar)|Gergely Nagy]], reviewing Shippey's ''[[festschrift]]'', wrote that Shippey "has been (and still is) an enabler for all of us in Tolkien Studies: author of the seminal ''The Road to Middle-earth'' (first published in 1983) and countless insightful articles, he is the veritable pope of the field."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Nagy |first=Gergely |author-link=Gergely Nagy (scholar) |year=2017 |title=[Review] Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey (2014), edited by John Wm. Houghton, Janet Brennan Croft, Nancy Martsch, John D. Rateliff, and Robin Anne Reid |journal=[[Journal of Tolkien Research]] |volume=4 |issue=1 |at=Article 7 |url=http://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol4/iss1/7 }}</ref>

=== Family life ===

Shippey married Susan Veale in 1966; after that marriage ended, he married Catherine Elizabeth Barton in 1993. He has three children.<ref name="encyc" /> He retired in 2008, and now lives in [[Dorset]].<ref name="SLU CV" /><ref name="Swarthmore">{{Cite web |last=Shippey |first=Tom |date=8 July 2014 |title=Tolkien Book to Jackson Script: The Medium and the Message |url=https://www.swarthmore.edu/news-events/tolkien-book-to-jackson-script-medium-and-message |access-date=25 November 2021 |publisher=[[Swarthmore College]]}}</ref>

== Film and television ==

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

* 1984: ''Tolkien Remembered''<ref>{{cite web |title=Tolkien Remembered |url=https://www.macearchive.org/films/tolkien-remembered |website=Mace Archive |date=23 June 2017 |access-date=29 May 2022}}</ref>
* 1996: ''J.R.R.T.: A Film Portrait of J.R.R. Tolkien''<ref>{{cite web |title=J.R.R.T.: A Film Portrait of J.R.R. Tolkien (1996) |url=https://www.whatismymovie.com/item?item=0297196 |website=What Is My Movie |access-date=29 May 2022}}</ref>
* 1998: ''An Awfully Big Adventure: J.R.R. Tolkien''<ref>{{cite news |last1=Dixon |first1=Greg |title='Rings' master's accidental circus |url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/rings-masters-accidental-circus/4PQTKUKKQPZNGKRIL4RK3ZWMXI/ |access-date=29 May 2022 |work=[[The New Zealand Herald]] |date=29 November 2001}}</ref>

* 2002: ''Page to Screen: The Lord of the Rings''<ref>{{cite book |last=Thompson |first=Kristin |title=The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood |date=2007 |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |isbn=978-0-520-25813-6 |page=118 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1odPDYvGBygC&pg=PA118}}</ref>
* 2003: ''J.R.R. Tolkien: Origins of Middle-Earth''<ref>{{cite web |title=J.R.R. Tolkien: Origins of Middle-Earth (2003) |url=https://www.movie-films.com/titles/127379/jrr-tolkien-origins-of-middle-earth |website=Movie Films |access-date=29 May 2022}}</ref>

He participated in [[Peter Jackson]]'s [[The Lord of the Rings (film series)|''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy]], for which he assisted the dialect coaches.<ref name="white"/> He 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 also that of [[The Hobbit (film series)|''The Hobbit'' film trilogy]].<ref name="SLU CV"/> He summarized his experiences with the film project as follows:

{{blockquote|"The funny thing about interviews is you never know which bits they're going to pick. It always feels as if they sit you down, shine bright lights in your eyes, and ask you questions until you say something really silly, and that's the bit they choose. At least they didn't waterboard me. But it was good fun, and I'd cheerfully do it again."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Transcript of chat session with Pr. Tom Shippey during The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun Online Release Party (09.05.09) – comments (1) |url=http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/885-Tom_Shippey_chat_session.php |website=Tolkien Library |publisher=Pieter Collier}}</ref>}}

== Publications ==

Apart from his published books, Shippey has written a large number of scholarly articles.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tom Shippey|url=https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=Tom+Shippey&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1 |publisher=Google Scholar |access-date=24 June 2022}}</ref>

; Books written
* ''Old English Verse'' (London: [[Hutchinson (publisher)|Hutchinson]], 1972, {{ISBN|978-0-09-111031-4}}).
* ''Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English'' (Cambridge: [[D.S. Brewer]], 1976; 2nd ed., 1977 {{ISBN|0-091-11030-0}}).
* ''Beowulf''. ''Arnold's Studies in English Literature'' series (London: [[Edward Arnold (publisher)|Edward Arnold]], 1978, {{ISBN|978-0-71316-147-2}}).
* ''[[The Road to Middle-earth]]'' (London: [[Allen & Unwin]], 1982; Boston: [[Houghton Mifflin]], 1983), 2nd ed. (London: [[HarperCollins]], 1993), Revised and Expanded edition (London: [[HarperCollins]], 2005 {{ISBN|978-0-26110-275-0}}).
* ''[[J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century]]'' (London: [[HarperCollins]], 2001, {{ISBN|978-0-26110-401-3}}).
* ''Roots and Branches: Selected Papers on Tolkien'' (Zurich and Berne: [[Walking Tree Publishers]], Cormarë Series 11, 2007, {{ISBN|978-3-905703-05-4}}).
* ''Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction'' ([[Liverpool University Press]], 2016, {{ISBN|978-1-78138-261-5}}).
* ''Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings'' ([[Reaktion Books]], 2018, {{ISBN|978-1-780239-09-5}}).
* ''Beowulf and the North Before the Vikings'' (Arc Humanities Press, 2022, {{ISBN|978-1-80270-013-8}}).

; Translations
* ''Beowulf: Translation and Commentary (Expanded Edition). Ed. Leonard Neidorf.'' (Uppsala Books, 2024, {{ISBN|978-1-96136-114-0}}).

; Books edited
* ''Fictional Space: Essays on Contemporary Science Fiction'', (Oxford: [[Basil Blackwell]], 1991, {{ISBN|0-631-17129-0}}).
* ''[[The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories]]'', (Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]], 1992, {{ISBN|0-19-214204-6}}).
* ''Fiction 2000: On Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative'', with George Slusser, (U Georgia Press'','' 1993).
* ''The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories'', (Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]], 1994 {{ISBN|0-19-214216-X}}).
* ''Beowulf: The Critical Heritage'', with Andreas Haarder (New York: [[Routledge]], 1998 {{ISBN|978-1-13800-910-3}}).
* ''Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honour of Leslie J. Workman'', with [[Richard Utz]] ([[Turnhout]]: [[Brepols]], 1998), {{ISBN|2-503-50166-4}}, {{OCLC|40884815}}.
* ''The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous'', (Turnhout: [[Brepols]], 2005 {{ISBN|978-2-50352-094-0}}).
* ''Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R.D. Fulk'', with [[Leonard Neidorf]] and Rafael J. Pascual (Cambridge: [[D.S. Brewer]], 2016 {{ISBN|978-1-84384-438-9}}).

== Awards and distinctions ==

* 1984 – [[Mythopoeic Society|Mythopoeic Award]], Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies, ''[[The Road to Middle-earth]]''<ref name="Myth 1984">{{Cite web |title=Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies 1984 |url=http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/awards-winners.htm |access-date=28 November 2021 |publisher=[[Mythopoeic Society]]}}</ref>
* 2001 – Mythopoeic Award, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies, ''[[J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century]]''<ref name="Myth 2001">{{Cite web |title=Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies 2001 |url=http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/awards-winners.htm |access-date=28 November 2021 |publisher=[[Mythopoeic Society]]}}</ref>
* 2001 – [[World Fantasy Award]], Special Award Professional, ''J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century''<ref name="WFA 2001">{{Cite web |title=World Fantasy Awards. Special Award, Professional Winner 2001 |url=https://www.sfadb.com/World_Fantasy_Awards_2001 |access-date=28 November 2021}}</ref>


* 2008 – Mythopoeic Award, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies, ''The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous''<ref name="Myth 2008">{{Cite web |title=Mythopoeic Awards Acceptance Remarks – 2008 |url=https://www.mythsoc.org/awards/awards-2008-remarks.htm |access-date=23 August 2022 |publisher=[[Mythopoeic Society]]}}</ref>
* 2008 -- ''[[Festschrift]]'' edited by Andrew Wawn, Graham Johnson and John Walter, ''Constructing Nations, Reconstructing Myth''.
* 2014 – ''Festschrift'' edited by John Wm. Houghton, [[Janet Brennan Croft]], Nancy Martsch, [[John D. Rateliff]], and [[Robin Anne Reid]], ''Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey''<ref name="Houghton Croft Martsch 2014">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A_rsAwAAQBAJ&pg=PP1 |title=Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey |publisher=[[McFarland & Company|McFarland]] |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-4766-1486-1 |editor-last=Houghton |editor-first=John Wm. |pages=1–5, 11–15 |access-date=28 November 2021 |editor-last2=Croft |editor-first2=Janet Brennan |editor-link2=Janet Brennan Croft |editor-last3=Martsch |editor-first3=N.}}</ref>
* 2020 - ''Festschrift'', edited by Eric Shane Bryan and Alaexander Ames, ''Literary Speech Acts of the Medieval North: Essays inspired by the works of T A Shippey'',

== References ==

{{reflist|30em}}

==External links==

{{wikiquote}}
{{commons category}}
* {{isfdb name|2476}}
* [https://lrb.co.uk/contributors/tom-shippey Tom Shippey] at the ''[[London Review of Books]]'', 47 pieces as of October 2022

{{J. R. R. Tolkien}}
{{World Fantasy Special Award Professional}}
{{Beowulf}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Shippey, Tom}}
[[Category:1943 births]]
[[Category:Academics of the University of Leeds]]
[[Category:Anglo-Saxon studies scholars]]
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[[Category:British medievalists]]

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Tom Shippey