Recently, word came out that famous author J.R.R. Tolkien’s house was up for sale. Outcry from fans sparked a campaign called Project Northmoor to save his house in Oxford, England.
J.R.R. Tolkien was revolutionary in changing the course of fantasy literature with The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and many other works. If it wasn’t for him, we may not have gotten many of the fantasy and science fiction stories that we have today. His writings influenced many novels and movies in the second half of the 20th century. He made the genre popular, even though it did take some time. With Peter Jackson’s film adaptation in the early 2000s of The Lord of the Rings epic, it spawned even more love for the genre and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Peter Jackson filmed most of the movies in New Zealand, and even today you can visit Hobbiton and many of the other film locations. It has become quite a pilgrimage for The Lord of the Rings fans. But, as of yet, there is not one location in the UK where Tolkien fans can gather to see manuscripts and other mementos. They are mostly scattered around different libraries and museums. Many fans and stars of Peter Jackson’s movies wish to change this.
John Rhys-Davies and Ian McKellen are some who are advocating for one place, in this case, J.R.R. Tolkien’s home in Oxford, England, to be a place where they can have a museum of sorts, or at least an area where they can preserve many manuscripts and mementos of Tolkien.
Project Northmoor was launched in this initiative when J.R.R. Tolkien’s home at 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford had gone up for sale. It is the very same house where he wrote The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and other works. The goal of Project Northmoor is to raise enough money to purchase the house and renovate it so that “the guest can experience what it would have been like to call on the Professor in 1940,” as Project Northmoor’s website explains.
This idea is not meant to be a museum like some have thought. With it being in a residential area, it is not zoned for this type of building. Instead, it would function much like other famous British author C.S. Lewis’s home, The Kilns, does in Headington, England, just north of Oxford. You could book a spot in the “retreats, writing seminars, and other cultural events” that would be planned. There are, of course, also plans for virtual events as well. It would be more like a retreat center and less like a place where the public could come and learn about J.R.R. Tolkien.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli the Dwarf and Treebeard the Ent in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films, said:
“There is no focal point for Tolkien fans throughout the world. Right at the moment, the object is to secure one. If people had the chance of buying Jane Austen's house 20 years after she died, or John Milton's house, and missed the chance, today we would all be saying, didn't anyone realize at the time what was happening? This is an extraordinary opportunity. If you are a Tolkien fan, it would be awful nice to be able to go and see where he sat down. I'm sure we can recreate his study.”
Tolkien taught at Oxford University, and he was a student of mythology. He taught Beowulf and other myths as part of his classes. His version of Beowulf was posthumously edited together by his son Christopher Tolkien and released in 2014. He found his initial inspiration for Middle-earth in this and other mythologies, especially Norse myths and Finnish epics like Kalevala. He wanted to create his own version of a mythology for England since they did not have one like many of the countries did. He seems to have succeeded with his extensive work in literally creating an entire world, language, stories, etc. Many of which have been published posthumously by Christopher Tolkien. John Rhys-Davies continued:
“He was trying to recreate a history, a pre-Arthurian history. There are still some silly people who say ‘oh, he’ll be forgotten in 200 years anyway.’ Yeah, I’m sure they said that about Giraldus Cambrensis too, and the myth of Arthur. I will lay money that Tolkien, of all the contemporary writers we've had, will be remembered in 1,000 years. Although we will know it’s not history, those pre-Arthurian myths will be part of our mythology in the way that the myth of Arthur is part of our history. Strong societies depend on the legends and the mythology that they have."
You can read more about the effort to preserve J.R.R. Tolkien’s Oxford home at the Project Northmoor website, as well as, information as to how to donate to this project.
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