Humphrey Carpenter

Carefully traces Tolkien's life, revealing surprising links between his own experience and his written works, especially The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Silmarillion. Reprint.

A Biography

J.R.R. Tolkien

A biography of CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien and the group of writers to come out of Oxford during the Second World War.

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends

The Inklings

Drawing on unpublished letters and diaries, the author examines the friendship between and the social and literary gatherings of Lewis, Tolkien, and Williams who laughingly called themselves the Inklings.

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and their friends

The original authorised biography, and the only one written by an author who actually met J.R.R. Tolkien.

J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography

Mr Majeika

W. H. Auden

Spike Milligan was one of our best-loved comics as well as one of our most original. In this first major assessment of Spike's life and career, the highly respected biographer Humphrey Carpenter has - through copious research and access to many of those closest to the great man - unearthed a character who could be as difficult and contradictory as he was generous and talented. The creator of The Goons was to influence a whole generation of comics, yet was never to feel fully valued. His periods of depression were matched by periods of high creativity - there were poems, novels, volumes of biography, as well as TV series and a one-man show as Spike searched for his best means of expression. There was also, as revealed here, his inveterate womanising. Married three times and with four children to whom he was devoted, two illegitimate children were to remain barely acknowledged. Detailing both his private and professional life, Humphrey Carpenter gives us the most revealing portrait yet of this highly complex genius.

The Biography

Spike Milligan

Christopher Tolkien

Hal Hager

"Includes comprehension questions, vocabulary, and questions for class discussion, essays, and projects." Also includes chronology of Tolkien's life and quotations from The letters of J.R.R Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien.

A Teacher's Guide

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Mr Majeika and the Ghost Train

Mr. Majeika and the School Trip

Mr. Majeika on the Internet (Young Puffin Story Books)

In Humphrey Carpenter's own words, 'This is the story of the longest-ever literary party, which went on in Montparnasse, on the Left Bank, throughout the 1920s.' 'This book', to continue to quote Carpenter himself, 'is chiefly a collage of Left-Bank expatriate life as it was experienced by the Hemingway generation - "The Lost Generation", as Gertrude Stein named it in a famous remark to Hemingway.' There are brief portraits of Gertrude Stein, Natalie Clifford Barney and Sylvia Beach, who moved to Paris before the First World War and provided vital introductions for the exiles of the 1920s. The main narrative, however, concerns the years 1921 to 1928 because these saw the arrival and departure of Hemingway and most of his Paris associates. 'He is a compelling guide, catching the kind of idiosyncratic detail or incident that holds the readers' attention and maintains a cracking pace. Anyone wanting an introduction to the constellation of talent that made the Left Bank in Paris during the Twenties a second Greenwich Village would find this a useful and inspiring book.' Times Educational Supplement

American Writers in Paris in the 1920s

Geniuses Together

Samenhangende studie over het werk van een tiental auteurs van kinderboeken uit de periode 1860 tot 1930.

A Study of the Golden Age of Children's Literature

Secret Gardens

'Oh, don't be cowards,' said Jody. 'I'm sure it's perfectly safe.' Mysteriously stranded in the fog at night. Mr Majeika and Class Three find themselves in a creepy hotel near Hadrian's Wall, where some very spooky things start to happen. Strange lights, ghostly sounds and vanishing people...

Mr Majeika and the Haunted Hotel

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams y sus amigos

Los Inklings

Covering the period from the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Winnie-the-Pooh, Humphrey Carpenter examines the lives and writings of Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame, George Macdonald, Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgson Burnett, A.A. Milne and others whose works make up the Golden Age of children's literature. Both a collective biography and a work of criticism, Secret Gardens forces us to reconsider childhood classics in a new light. 'Secret Gardens permits us to see in a fresh light the interaction between cultural history and literature, and to realize that ... it wasn't mere misfits who withdrew into the writing of children's books, but rather the sort of misfits who reflected the prevailing dissatisfactions of the age.' New York Times Book Review

'Do be careful, Mr Majeika, there might be real ghosts in there.' When Class Three and Mr Majeika get on board a ghost train, they are in for a surprise. Real ghosts appear and the wicked Wilhemina Worlock isn't far away. But Jody comes to the rescue - with a dragon to help her!

Discusses Evelyn Waugh's circle of friends and colleagues, and describes their influence on his work

Evelyn Waugh and His Friends

The Brideshead Generation

'I really am quite useless as a wizard.' But Class Three thinks Mr Majeika is an excellent wizard, particularly when his spells go wrong! First Hamish Bigmore ends up on TV, then a real giant appears in the school play. And finally Mr Majeika gets the whole class lost on a magic carpet! There's always an adventure with Mr Majeika around...

Humphrey Carpenter

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