Arthurian Literature
A large body of writings in various languages in the 12th and 13th centuries and thereafter, recounting legends of King Arthur, his sword Excalibur, his queen Guinevere, and his various knights at ...
Beowulf
[Do]Anglo‐Saxon epic poem of the early 8th century ad or earlier, set among the Geats of Sweden. It is one of the longest and most complete examples of Anglo‐Saxon verse, shedding much light on the ...
British and Irish fairy tales
1. The medieval periodEnglish fantasy could be said to have its beginning in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, the best-known early work in English literature, generally dated in the ...
C. S. Lewis
(1898–1963)British author and scholar, many of whose works deal with religious and moral themes reflecting his Christian faith.Born in Belfast, Lewis was sent after his mother's early death to ...
Charles Williams
(1886–1945),poet, novelist, and theological writer. His novels, which have been described as supernatural thrillers, include War in Heaven (1930), Descent into Hell (1937), and All Hallows Eve ...
Children's Literature
“Language,” Loren Eiseley wrote, “implies boundaries. A word spoken creates a dog, a rabbit, a man. It fixes their nature before our eyes.” What does well for a rabbit or ...
dwarf
In folklore or fantasy, a member of a mythical race of short, stocky human-like creatures who are generally skilled in mining and metalworking.In astronomy, dwarf (or dwarf star) is used for a star ...
fantasy
A general term for any kind of fictional work that is not primarily devoted to realistic representation of the known world. The category includes several literary genres (e.g. dream vision, fable, ...
Guy Gavriel Kay
(1954– )Canadian fantasy writer, born in Saskatchewan. After helping to edit J. R. R. Tolkien's posthumous Silmarillion, Kay wrote novels that increasingly fused fantasy with historical ‘versions’ ...
Hobbit
or(1937)The first published excursion by Tolkien into ‘Middle Earth’, an intricately realized other world. Hobbits are the bucolic residents of ‘the Shire’, based on the pastoral Midlands. The ...
Humphrey Carpenter
(1946–2005), British biographer, broadcaster, and musician. After a career with BBC Radio Oxford, Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter wrote J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977) and The Inklings ...
Inklings
A group of friends who gathered round C. S. Lewis at Oxford from the 1930s to the 1960s, and read aloud their original compositions. Members included J. R. R. Tolkien and C. Williams.
J. K. Rowling
(1965–),born in Yate, South Gloucestershire, she took a degree in French at Exeter University. On a long train ride in 1990, the idea came to her of a series of children's books about a boy who is a ...
Last Unicorn
(film: USA, 1982),animated fable about beauty, duty, and ecology. Peter Beagle himself adapted his 1968 ‘hip Tolkien’ novel in which a female unicorn hears that all others of her ...
Lin Carter
(1930–88)American novelist and editor born St Petersburg, Florida. His own fiction pastiches Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard, but as editor and anthologist, reviving important figures like ...
Lloyd Alexander
(1924–2007), major American author of fairy-tale novels.He studied at the Sorbonne and translated Sartre and Éluard. His best-known work, the so-called Prydain Chronicles, consists of five novels, ...
Lord of the Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien's huge mythopoeic novel, which first appeared in three volumes in 1954–5. It tells the story of the heroic and finally successful struggle to destroy a powerful ...
Michael De Larrabeiti
(1934–), author of children's fantasy fiction, short stories, and travel writing, born in London of an English mother and Basque father. After traveling extensively in Europe as a young adult ...
Neverending Story
A multi-million-selling fairy tale about the death of fairy tales. Much to the author Michael Ende's disgust, it has spawned three films (West Germany, 1984; Germany, 1989; and Germany, 1994). ...
New Age
The New Age movement is an amorphous association of people who identify primarily as spiritual explorers. Many if not most feel that humanity is at the dawn of entering into ...
