A Short Obituary

We regret to announce the death of Humphrey Carpenter, who made an early and unique contribution to Tolkien scholarship when, with the approval of the Tolkien family, he was commissioned to write the authorised biography for Allen and Unwin. Published in May 1977, a few months before The Silmarillion, it brought the stories of the T.C.B.S. and the love of Ronald and Edith to Tolkien fans for the first time. It also included an indispensable bibliography, which even today has only had a few items added to it (apart from the posthumous works, of course). Carpenter was then commissioned to write The Inklings (1978), and finally edited a large selection of Tolkien's Letters (1981), with the aid of Christopher Tolkien.

Carpenter was born andwriters.

Humphrey was a charming and enthusiastic man who nevertheless took enormous pains over his research; he was an accomplished jazz musician on several instruments; and his premature death at 58 brought up in Oxford, where his father, Rev. Harry Carpenter, was Warden of Keble College and then Bishop of Oxford. He read English at Keble, and then joined Radio Oxford, where he worked on a series of interviews about Tolkien's life. After completing his Tolkien "trilogy". Carpenter built a free-lance career as a biographer, book-reviewer, radio broadcaster and even children's book writer (the Mr. Majeika series). His most celebrated biographies were of Auden and Britten; with his wife he edited The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature; and he also wrote Secret Gardens, a pioneering study of some of the great Victorian and Edwardian children's from heart failure has inevitably shocked his many friends. We offer our deep sympathies to his widow Mari and their two daughters.

Jessica Yates

See the BBC page about Humphrey Carpenter.