A Wilderness of Dragons is a Festschrift in honor of noted Tolkien scholar
and author Verlyn Flieger, edited (and with a contribution by) John D. Rateliff.



First announced back in May of 2015 with a call for papers, this long anticipated volume of essays has three sections - Tolkienian Studies, Flieger's Fictions, and Three Personal Tributes. Verlyn Flieger's best-known books are Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World (1983; revised edition, 2002); A Question of Time: J. R. R. Tolkien's Road to Faerie, which won the 1998 Mythopoeic Award for Inklings studies; and Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien's Mythology (2005).

The Gabbro Head Press released A Wilderness of Dragons, their inaugural title, late last year in paperback and soon followed with a hardcover edition. An electronic version is due at any moment, as well. All available versions are sold through amazon.com and fulfilled by the publisher.

A Wilderness of Dragons on Amazon.com

Contents

Introduction - John D. Rateliff

Tolkienian Studies

"A Seed of Courage: Merry, Pippin, and the Ordinary Hero" by Amy Amendt-Raduege

"Smith of Wootton Major and Genre Fantasy" by David Bratman

"Three Stories Holding Hands: The Wind in the Willows, Huntingtower,
and The Hobbit" by Marjorie Burns

"J. R. R. Tolkien: The Foolhardy Philologist" by Jason Fisher

"“Mythology is Language and Language is Mythology”: How Verlyn Flieger’s Favorite ‘Bumper-sticker’ Works in Tolkien’s Legendarium" by Andrew Higgins

"Do Eldar Dream of Immortal Sheep?: Dreams, Memory, and Enchantment at the End of the Third Age" by Thomas Hillman, with Simon Cook, Jeremiah Burns, Richard Rohlin, & Oliver Stegen

“A Green Great Dragon” and J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Native Language” by John R. Holmes

"Splintered Heroes: Heroic Variety and its Function in The Lord of the Rings" by Thomas Honegger

"Lessons of Myth, Mortality, & the Machine in the Dream State Space-Time Travel Tales of J. R. R. Tolkien and Olaf Stapledon" by Kristine Larsen

"“To Recall Forgotten Gods from their Twilight”: J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Name Nodens”" by John D. Rateliff

"A History of the Acquisition: Marquette and the Tolkien Manuscripts" by Taum Santoski

"Seers and Singers: Tolkien’s Typology of Sub-creators" by Anna Smol

"Tolkien’s Story of Kullervo: A Lost Link between Kirby’s Kalevala and Tolkien’s Legendarium" by Vivien Stocker

"The Rare and Elusive “Green, Great Dragon”" by Sandra Ballif Straubhaar

"“A Recognizable Irish Strain” in Tolkien’s Work" by Kris Swank

"Canute and Beorhtnoth" by Richard C. West

Flieger’s Fictions

"“Green Hill Country”: A Scholar’s Tale" by Peter Grybauskas

"Words Made Flesh in Avilion" by Paul Edmund Thomas

"Identity, Time, and Faerie in Pig Tale and The Inn at Corbies’ Caaw: An Unexpected Convergence of Realms" by Dennis Wilson Wise

Three Personal Tributes

"A Teacher’s Teacher: Verlyn Flieger" by Susan Yager

"Music, Time, and Light in the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien and Verlyn Flieger:
A Reflection" by Bradford Lee Eden

"“Whose Myth Is It?”: Tolkien Studies as Interdisciplinary Studies" by Kristine Larsen