The largest exhibit about Lord of the Rings creator J.R.R. Tolkien in years is set to make its way to the United States.
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Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth will run at New York’s Morgan Library and Museum from January 25th through May 12th.
Here’s the exhibit’s official description, from the library’s website:
“‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’ With these words the Oxford professor J.R.R. Tolkien ignited a fervid spark in generations of readers. From the children’s classic The Hobbit to the epic The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien’s adventurous tales of hobbits and elves, dwarves and wizards have introduced millions to the rich history of Middle-earth. Going beyond literature, Tolkien’s Middle-earth is a world complete with its own languages and histories. Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth celebrates the man and his creation. The exhibition will be the most extensive public display of original Tolkien material for several generations. Drawn from the collections of the Tolkien Archive at the Bodleian Library (Oxford), Marquette University Libraries (Milwaukee), the Morgan, and private lenders, the exhibition will include family photographs and memorabilia, Tolkien’s original illustrations, maps, draft manuscripts, and designs related to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.”
Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy literature. In the early 2000s, Peter Jackson turned Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy into an Academy Award-winning film trilogy. Jackson returned to Middle-earth a decade later to adapt The Hobbit into a film trilogy.
Amazon is set to expand on Tolkien’s work with a new television series. The series will reportedly focus on young Aragorn, the heir to the throne of Gondor who goes into self-imposed exile with the Rangers of the North. Conflicting accounts have surfaced about about Jackson’s involvement with the series.
“I don’t have thoughts on it because I haven’t seen [anything],’ Jackson said in his most recent comments on the matter. ‘I think they’re going to send us some scripts to see if we can help them along. I wish them all the best and if we can help them we certainly will try. ‘It’s a big task.”
“I’ve sat with Simon Tolkien [JRR Tolkien’s grandson] for a couple of hours, and (Amazon TV executive) Sharon (Tal Yguado) has spent tons of time with them,” Amazon TV head Jennifer Salke said in June. “She had spent the last couple of months meeting anyone who had said, ‘I’m really passionate about it and I want to get in and talk about the show and what’s possible.’ I think you’ll see us honing in on a strategy in the next month, which might involve a group of writers. Clearly, there’ll be someone in charge, but it involves the estate and Peter Jackson, and there’s a lot of conversations.”
Will you be checking out the Tolkien exhibit? Let us know in the comments!
[H/T] Open Culture
