Oct 22, 2019 – Feb 16 2020
The BnF offers a major exhibition devoted to the protean work of JRR Tolkien, a brilliant Oxford professor and creator of worlds, who continues to live in the imagination of a very wide audience. The approximately 300 exhibits highlight both man and his work. For the first time in France, many original Tolkien manuscripts and drawings are presented. At the same time, a selection of exceptional pieces from most of the BnF’s collections provides a context for this artistic and literary creation.
Invitation to a trip to Middle-earth, the exhibition allows the public to apprehend the imaginary world wrought by the author of Lord of the Rings. Writer, philologist and academic, JRR Tolkien has built, in a set of thousands of pages mostly unpublished in his lifetime, what looks like a “modern mythology”, with his invented languages, heroes, his people, its geography, architecture, arts and history.
Organized in collaboration with the Tolkien Estate and the Tolkien family, and with the exceptional participation of Oxford’s Bodleian Library and Marquette University Libraries (Milwaukee, USA), the exhibition takes the visitor through the imaginary geography of Tolkien. The first part of the course is conducted in a series of chapters which are as much of stops in Earth of the Medium, from the County to Mordor, and beyond, in Valinor. Each Instead, each territory gives the opportunity to address the issues literary, cultural or language that underlie his work.
For further information and timings, please visit The Bnf.
