Illustrated Blog Posts

Professor Tolkien has just risen from his desk, for a moment. His pipe is still smoking in a china bowl, and his dip pen rests for a...

The fate of the Free Peoples of Middle-earth famously hinges on the pity of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. Yet, there is more to explore about...

The autumnal, brooding quiet in which Jane Austen's Persuasion begins feels as if it will never lift. Anne Elliot is fading away like a...

Do you hang seasonal art in your home to keep your dwelling in tune with the round of the year? It's a lovely, mindful custom and perhaps...

It does not sparkle like Pride and Prejudice , thrill like Persuasion , or even produce laughter like Northanger Abbey , but Jane...

If you love the hobbits as I do, you may wish that J.R.R. Tolkien had been granted the time to write a dozen more books about them and...

When Boromir attends the Council of Elrond, he nearly laughs aloud at the spectacle of an aged, tiny being called a hobbit offering to...

I treasure Northanger Abbey for the feeling it gives of a young Jane writing to a young us. The author knows what it is to be free from...

Had all J.R.R. Tolkien's elves been like the Vanyar, The Silmarillion would not exist. Ingwë, High King of all the elves, is satisfied...

When Eärendil is set to sail the skies with a Silmaril on his brow as a sign of hope for Middle-earth, Elrond is left behind to gaze from...

Why do we love Jane Austen with such devotion? Every reader's answers will be unique, but as I researched all known images and...

Elegant, gallant, beloved Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen's most sparkling novel, with a plot that moves like a swift, crystal-clear...

By the time Merry and Pippin escape from their orc captors, things have gotten quite momentous and arduous in The Lord of the Rings. But...

"I will take your gift, O Bilbo the Magnificent!" said the king gravely. "And I name you elf-friend and blessed..." - The Hobbit, Chapter...

For many readers, Tolkien offers a lavish, if temporary, escape from our increasingly-utilitarian culture into a realm of visual riches....

It's a fascinating cultural development that just as tech giants are threatening to replace millennia of human history in the arts with...

Because many readers first encounter Gandalf through hobbit eyes, our lasting idea of him may be of a great, powerful figure, sometimes...

"'...You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after...

Hobbits are good at games of skill, elves can be lore-masters, and in Tolkien's legendarium, "riddling talk" is not only irresistible to...

"What's come of his weskit? I don't hold with wearing ironmongery, whether it wears well or no," says the Gaffer of Sam's gilded mail...