2025 Best Artwork winner – Ted Nasmith, Arrival in the ShireWe are pleased to announce the winners of The Tolkien Society Awards 2025.
The Tolkien Society Awards recognise excellence in the fields of Tolkien scholarship and fandom, highlighting our long-standing charitable objective to “seek to educate the public in, and promote research into, the life and works of Professor John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE”.
Tolkien Society members were invited to vote on shortlists prepared by the Trustees, which was based on nominations submitted by members of the public.
Congratulations to all winners!
The Tolkien Society Awards 2025
Best Artwork
- “Niggle’s Wet Bicycle Ride” by Matěj Čadil
- “The Hobbit” by Yifan Jia
- “Helm’s Deep” by Jay Johnstone
- Winner – “Arrival in the Shire” by Ted Nasmith
Best Article
- Winner – “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1953 W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture: An Updated Chronology and Related Findings by Andoni Cossio and Dimitra Fimi (English Studies 105, #6)
- ““The Ghostly Language of the Ancient Earth”: Tolkien, Geology, and Romantic Lithology” by Nick Groom (The Romantic Spirit in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Will Sherwood and Julian Eilmann)
- “The Horror of the Unnarrated in The Lord of the Rings: Implications for Tolkien’s Reader” by Yvette Kisor (Mallorn 65, Winter 2024)
- ‘Beyond the Circles of the World’: The Meaning of Death and Immortality as Reflected in Tolkien’s ‘Incarnate’ Beings by Siobhán Maloney Latar, S.T.D. (Journal of Inklings Study 14 #2)
- Tolkien, “The Battle of Maldon,” and “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth”: Poetic Allusions and the Eperience of Time by Anna Smol (Journal of Tolkien Research 20, #1)
Best Book
- Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth: Essays on the Habitations of Tolkien’s Legendarium ed. Cami D. Agan
- Mapping Middle-earth: Environmental and Political Narratives in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Cartographies by Anahit Behrooz
- The Romantic Spirit in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien ed. Will Sherwood and Julian Eilmann
- Tolkien and the Kalevala by Jyrki Korpua
- Winner – The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien ed Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond
- J.R.R. Tolkien: A Very Short Introduction by Matthew Townend
Best Online Content
- Ardacraft (www.ardacraft.me/)
- Athrabeth Podcast (podcast.athrabeth.com/)
- Winner – The Digital Tolkien Project (digitaltolkien.com)
- Tea with Tolkien (www.teawithtolkien.com/)
- An Unexpected Soundscape – The Hobbit (jordanrannells.com/shop/p/an-unexpected-soundscape)
Outstanding Contribution Award
Douglas A. Anderson – Doug has exemplified excellent Tolkien scholarly contributions for decades, including his efforts on The Annotated Hobbit, Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography, and co-founding of Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review.
