Janet Brennan Croft (born 1961) is an American Tolkien scholar and writer who has been Chair and Vice Chair of the Mythopoeic Society. She became editor of the society's scholarly journal, Mythlore, in 2006, and is a frequent contributor. She is also an associate librarian at University of Northern Iowa.
In the 2000's Croft began writing articles for Mythlore and Mythprint, as well as the Tolkien Society's journal Mallorn, and soon authored War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien, a book studying the impacts of J.R.R. Tolkien's wartime experiences. She contributed the section concerning war in Stuart D. Lee's extensive guide, A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien (2014). Croft also reviews many works of Tolkien scholarship and writes concerning literature of other Inklings.
Croft has collaborated with other Tolkien scholars on four essay compilations, including Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey in 2014. Around that time, she also advised in the making of Peter Jackson's film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
Books & articles[]
- Edited "Something Has Gone Crack": New Perspectives on J.R.R. Tolkien in the Great War with Annika Röttinger (2019)
- Edited Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey with John Wm. Houghton, Robin Anne Reid, John D. Rateliff, and Nancy Martsch (2014)
- Edited Perilous and Fair: Women in J.R.R. Tolkien's Work and Life with Leslie A. Donovan (2015)
- Edited Tolkien and Shakespeare: Essays on Shared Themes and Language (2007)
- Edited Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings (2005)
- Wrote War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien (2004)
- "The Great War and Tolkien's Memory: an examination of World War I themes in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings" in Mythlore, vol. 23 no. 4 (2002)
- “Beyond The Hobbit: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Other Works for Children" in World Literature Today (2003)
- "Reading Lord of the Rings: The Final Attempt: an analysis of a web community" in Mallorn, issue 41 (2003)
- "'The utter stupid waste of war': J.R.R. Tolkien on World War II" and "The Mines of Moria: 'Anticipation' and 'Flattening' in Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring" in Proceedings of the Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture Associations (2003)
- "Beyond The Hobbit: J.R.R. Tolkien's Other Works for Children" in World Literature Today (2004 January-April edition)
- "The Morality of Military Leadership in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings" in Mallorn, issue 42 (2004)
- "'The Young Perish and the Old Linger, Withering': World War II in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien" in Mythlore, vol. 92 (2004)
- "Bid the tree unfix his earth-bound root": Themes from Macbeth in The Lord of the Rings" in SEVEN: An Anglo-American Literary Review, vol. 21 (2004)
- Entries "Farmer Giles of Ham", "Gríma (Wormtongue)", "Haigh, Walter E. (1856-1931)", "Merry", "Pippin", "Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc.", & "Shakespeare" in J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment (2006)
- "Three Rings for Hollywood: Scripts for The Lord of the Rings by Zimmerman, Boorman, and Beagle" in Fantasy Fiction Into Film (ed. Leslie Stratyner & James R. Keller) (2007)
- "How I Learned More About Hobbits" in Silver Leaves, issue 1 (2007)
- "'Bid the Tree Unfix his Earth-bound Root': Themes from Macbeth in The Lord of the Rings" in her collection Tolkien and Shakespeare: Essays on Shared Themes and Language (2007)
- "Notes and Documents: Walter E. Haigh, Author of A New Glossary of the Huddersfield Dialect" in Tolkien Studies, vol. 4 (2007)
- "Naming the Evil One: Onomastic Strategies in Tolkien and Rowling" in Mythlore 107/108, vol. 28, no. 1 (2009)
- "Túrin and Aragorn: Embracing and Evading Fate" in Mythlore, vol. 20 no. 3 (2011)
- "The Hen that Laid the Eggs: Tolkien and the Officers Training Corps" in Tolkien Studies, vol. 8 (2011)
- "Jackson's Aragorn and the American Superhero Monomyth" in Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy (2011)
- “A Basic Multi-Media Collection by and about J.R.R. Tolkien" in Collection Building, vol. 30 no. 2 (2011)
- "On the origin of ideas" (review of Jason Fisher's Tolkien and the Study of His Sources) in Mallorn, vol. 53 (2012)
- 2014: "Tolkien’s Faërian Drama: Origins and Valedictions" in Mythlore, vol. 124 (2014)
- "Bibliographic Resources for Literature Searches on J.R.R Tolkien" in Journal of Tolkien Research, vol. 3, no. 1 (2016)
- "Tolkien's Faërian Drama: Origins and Valedictions" in The Return Of The Ring: Proceedings of the Tolkien Society Conference 2012 (2016)
- "Doors into Elf-mounds: J.R.R. Tolkien's Introductions, Prefaces, and Forewords" in Tolkien Studies, vol. 15 (2018)
External links[]
- Twitter page
- Academia page
- Interview by Michael Martinez for Middle-earth.xenite.org, October 2011
- Interview at the Tolkien Experience Podcast, January 2020