Rating: 
Summary: Meet the man behind the masterpiece
Review: Considering the fact that Tolkien abhorred the idea of someone writing a biography on him, considering the fact he thought it ridiculous that someone should read a biography on a writer, and considering his sentiment that the best biography on an author is his works of fiction, calling this book the 'authorized' account is pretty presumptuous.
Still, Carpenter manages the subject very well, chronicling Tolkien's life from his early years throughout his life, with a special amount of attention given to the period in which he was creating his 'hobbit' stories. This is as much a look inside Tolkien's literary mind as a look at his life, and one of the most fascinating aspects of this work is that the reader is able to follow the development of Tolkien's creative genius and see the very elements that inspired him to write his masterpieces "The Hobbit," "The Lord of the Rings," and "The Silmarillion."
For his biography, Carpenter was able to meet personally with Tolkien before his death. He also had full access to all of Tolkien's papers and letters at Oxford. He was able to talk with many of Tolkien's friends and family. Because of this, Carpenter is able to present a very accurate, extremely reliable, and very personal biography. He is very fair with his subject, and treats Tolkien neither as a deity nor an eccentric old man. The man who created Middle Earth was human, and Carpenter captures this brilliantly.
This work on Tolkien is very highly recommended to any fan of his work who wants a peek inside the life of this remarkable man.
Rating:
Summary: A tremendous look into Tolkien's life
Review: I bought this book many years ago but it never quite worked its way to the top of my reading list so it sat on my shelf unread all this time. I recently dusted it off and once I finally started, found I couldn't put it down. The book is a truly complete biography starting before his birth and following through all the way through to his death. The author is fairly reverant toward his subject but does not shirk in pointing out Tolkien's character flaws and shortcomings. I personally like this as I wasn't looking for a hatchet job but I don't want to read a breathless hero worship piece either. If you enjoy Tolkien's books, this is a must read. You'll learn where the ideas for the Shire came from, why LOTR is the only major novel he ever wrote, and so much more.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, delightful look at this wonderful man
Review: I cannot recommend this book enough for fans of Tolkien. Gaining access to his inner life and the days of his childhood is utterly marvelous! You can see his love of Philology and his genius for many languages. The author of this biography has done an amazing job of presenting the public with a touching glimpse into Tolkien's life. This book is worth every penny!
Rating:
Summary: Tolkien the man
Review: I recommend this biography to anyone who has read the any or all of Professor Tolkien's wonderful books. To see the sources of Middle-earth through Tolkien's experiences and ideas should be fascinating for any fan. Within the text we discover the real life Elrond, Bagshot row, and Luthien Tinuvial/Arwen and Beren/Aragorn. I was amazed to find in many places Tolkien's real life closely mimicking that of his character's. A quick example is that his grandfather lived to be one hundred years old and had three daughters, one of whom was Tolkien's mother. In the stories the old Took has reach a very old age, somewhere over one hundred, and has three daughters one of whom is Bilbo's mother. A great read for any fan of Middle Earth.
Rating:
Summary: A personal, illuminating view of Tolkien's life and writing
Review: If you've loved Tolkien's books all your life, and wondered what kind of person it takes to come up with works of genius like The Lord Of The Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, this book will be just what you wanted. Carpenter makes illuminating connections, linking Tolkien's early fascination with languages to the fact that the author first studied languages with his mother (who died while he was quite young). That nostalgic attachment to language led him to a lifetime of study of all sorts of Scandinavian and Germanic myths and epics, which ultimately inspired him to create his own mythology. Carpenter also mentions that Leaf By Niggle, one of Tolkien's short stories, expressed his own bittersweet feelings about having spent most of his life writing the Silmarillion and Lord Of The Rings; especially given that advancing age made it increasingly unlikely that they would be finished in his lifetime. This was news to me, so I tracked down the story in a secondhand copy of The Tolkien Reader... it was really quite touching. I'm planning to read The Letters Of J.R.R. Tolkien by Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien next. I'm pretty sure I won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Insight into the Life of the Great Philologist/Mythologist
Review: It is very rare that modern biography truly does justice to the life of its subject. All too often, the subject material is overshadowed by the vain attempts of the author to sensationalize the events in the individual's life without providing much true knowledge about the subject. However, such sensationalistic biography was not undertaken by Humphrey Carpenter, and because of that, we have this most excellent resource on the life and times of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Perhaps the most prominent trait of Carpenter's work is the insight into the effects of various events in Tolkiens life on his literary and scholarly development. Since J.R.R. Tolkien was defined by his Catholic faith, his scholarship, and his writing, this is an important consideration for a biographer. Having been influenced by many sources, it is only appropriate that these be considered for understanding the development of Tolkien's many works throughout his carreer. The effects of his family, schooling, World War I service, his friendships, and his marriage are carefully considered and explained. Furthermore, Carpenter often shows the precise events which inspired the beginning of many of Tolkien's languages and literary works. It is awe-inspiring to feel as though you are there, beside the great scholar, as he discovers these ideas and begins to shape them.
Indeed, for anyone interested in the developments of a great mind, this biography is highly recommended. I believe that one who hasn't even read the works of Tolkien would find this most fulfilling. However, for those who have indeed read Tolkien's works, this biography is nearly a necessary read for beginning to understand how this grand scholar developed.
Rating: 
Summary: A Fascinating Look Into Tolkien's Mind
Review: My favorite thing about Humphrey Carpenter's biography of J.R.R. Tolkien is the way we gain insight into the inspirations for Tolkien's writings. We learn of Tolkien's fascination with the fictions of William Morris and George MacDonald; Norse, Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon mythology; and, perhaps most importantly, Tolkien's desire to create a mythology FOR ENGLAND. Tolkien's life may have been, on the face of it, a little dull, but Carpenter does a wonderful job here of opening up for us the incredible excitement of Tolkien's INNER life - that is, the way he was able to incorporate his life-long love for and fascination with language and culture into a body of work that will, I think, continue to be read and cherised long after we are all dead and gone. Essential reading for all Tolkien fans and for all who wish to have a better undestanding of the creative mind.
Rating:
Summary: Tolkien and C. S. Lewis - a small point
Review: REVIEW OF HUMPHREY CARPENTER, J. R. R. TOLKIEN, A BIOGRAPHY (Geo. Allen & Unwin, 1977) This is a biography that is hard to fault. Especially for a Tolkien fan, it is a page-turner, and enormously helpful in understanding Tolkien. It is written with great sympathy and empathy. Appendices provide a genealogical chart (how right for Tolkien!), a chronology, a complete list of published writings up to 1998 (at least in the Houghton Mifflin edition of 2000), and a list of Carpenter's sources. The central issue in the Tolkien story, as in so many literary biographies, is the strange and mysterious manner in which books like _The Lord of the Rings_ can come out of what to all appearances are humdrum lives. Tolkien didn't even like to travel! In Tolkien's case we have also the additional question of how the human imagination can flower in a modern academic setting. Perhaps these are the two central questions to keep in mind while reading Carpenter, who is clearly often at pains to make Tolkien's life interesting enough to support his image. C. S. Lewis, a close friend of Tolkien, may have partially answered these questions when he wrote that "there are no ordinary people." The issue of the Lewis-Tolkien friendship provides the quibble I have with Carpenter; it concerns the manner in which the devout Catholicism of Tolkien played a role in the eventual cooling of the friendship between the two men. C. S. Lewis, who was led to convert to Christianity in large part by Tolkien himself, decided to remain Protestant after his conversion, and returned to the Church of England. Carpenter notes especially Tolkien's dislike of Lewis's _Pilgrim's Regress_, which appeared in 1933 and was, I believe, his first book after his conversion. But Carpenter gives no sign of having read _Pilgrim's Regress_, and indeed does not include it in his Appendix D, "Sources and Acknowledgements." Thus Carpenter missed something which might go far in accounting for Tolkien's dislike of that work. In _Pilgrim's Regress_, Book 6, Part ii, "Three Pale Men" we find this exchange (Mr. Neo-Angular is the Catholic): [begin quote] John was too tired and Drudge too respectful to reply: but Vertue said to Mr. Neo-Angular, "You are very kind. You are saving our lives." "I am not kind at all," said Mr. Neo-Angular with some warmth. "I am doing my duty. My ethics are based on dogma, not feeling." "I understand you very well," said Vertue. "May I shake hands with you?" "Can it be," said the other, "that you are one of us? You are a Catholic? A scholastic?" "I know nothing about that," said Vertue, "but I know that the rule is to be obeyed because it is a rule and not because it appeals to my feelings at the moment." "I see you are not one of us," said Angular, "and you are undoubtedly damned. Virtutes paganorum spendida vitia. Now let us eat." [end quote] Though Mr. Neo-Angular's (and Vertue's) point is valid for any Christian, this caricature of Catholicism would no doubt have been as much of a shock to Tolkien as it was for me, another confirmed admirer of Lewis, when I first saw it. And yet, literary critics who see Mary, the Blessed Virgin, in Tolkien's Galadriel can hardly fail (though I have never seen it mentioned) to see Mary also in Lewis's personification, Reason ("The Giant Slayer"). In Book 3 of _Pilgrim's Regress_ we find Reason portrayed as a woman "wound in a cloak of blue," a woman in the flower of her age, a sun-bright virgin" (Part ix) who in Book 4, Part ii, is portrayed as a mother figure, and in Part iv is referred to as "the Virgin." Lewis apparently even knew that one of Mary's titles is "Seat of Wisdom." Well, C. S. Lewis's grasp of Catholicism is forever a mystery. But Carpenter's treatment of this issue would, I submit, have been improved by a reading of _Pilgrim's Regress_. Tolkien fans, or people who would just like an excuse to re-read _The Lord of the Rings_, will like to have some maps handy (recall that Bilbo Baggins loved maps). I can speak highly for Barbara Strachey, _Journeys of Frodo: An Atlas of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings_ (Ballantine Books, NY, 1981; and Karen Wynn Fonstad, _The Atlas of Middle-Earth_ *revised edition* (Houghton Mifflin, 1991). Be sure to get the revised edition of Fonstad.
Rating: 
Summary: The wrong biographer for Tolkien
Review: Sadly, Carpenter's standard biography of Tolkien is written by a man wholely unsympathetic with Tolkien's life work and beliefs. As a result, while many of the facts are more or less correct, the spin given them gives an inaccurate picture of this very real, very human man. Pearce's biography, _Tolkien: Man and Myth_ ought to be read along side Carpenter's work for a more accurate picture.
Rating:
Summary: Tolkien
Review: The reason why I chose this book is because I respect Tolkien for all his accomplishments as an author and I wanted to know a little more about him then I already did. This Biography did a wonderful job of making me get to know Tolkien as a person through showing me his life. This book was entertaining... because I wanted to learn about Tolkien. It was also educational because I learned a lot about Tolkien and it was thought provoking because it made me think about the reasons certain things were in his stories and also what my life would be like if I had the motivations and drive to work for what I wanted just like he had. I recommend this book to any one who is interested in Tolkien in the slightest.
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