Smith of Wootton Major & Farmer Giles of Ham [Paperback]

Venture into the imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien with these classic fantasies that dazzle and delight.

Smith of Wootton Major

“LikeThe Hobbit,this is first and foremost a goodtale—dense and engrossing, full of unexpectedturns. . . . It is both homely and haunting, and in its way, almost literally bewitching.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A short prose meditation on the gift of fantasy, what it is, whence it comes, and what it means to the life and character of the man who receives it.”—Paul H. Kocher, author ofMaster of Middle-earth

Farmer Giles of Ham

This short story is a delightfully ribald mock-heroic tale. When a “cunning, inquisitive, greedy, well-armored but not overly bold” dragon invades a kingdom, a most unwilling Farmer Giles is chosen to slay the dragon . . . a dragon who refuses to fight.John Ronald Reuel Tolkienwas born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. After serving in World War I, he embarked upon a distinguished academic career and was recognized as one of the finest philologists in the world. He was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, a fellow of Pembroke College, and a fellow of Merton College until his retirement in 1959. He is, however, beloved throughout the world as the creator of Middle-earth and author of such classic works asThe HobbitandThe Lord of the Rings. He died on September 2, 1973, at the age of eighty-one.There was a village once, not very long ago for those with long memories, nor very far away for those with long legs. Wootton Major it was called because it was larger than Wootton Minor, a few miles away deep in the trees; but it was not very large, though it was at that time prosperous, and a fair number of folk lived in it, good, bad, and mixed, as is usual.

It was a remarkable village in its way, being well known in the country round about for lc�