David Stephen Bratman (born in Chicago, Illinois) is an Inklings, fantasy, and Tolkien scholar and academic library consultant. He is highly involved with the Tolkien Studies periodical and with the Mythopoeic Society, as board member, awards administrator, and editor of their monthly bulletin, Mythprint.
Bratman is co-editor of volumes 10 through 19 of Tolkien Studies with Michael D. C. Drout and Verlyn Flieger. He has contributed to Tolkien and Inklings scholarship since 1977, but has also written concerning fiction writers Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Mervyn Peake.
The website of the Tolkien Estate features an introduction written by Bratman to Christopher Tolkien's The History of Middle-earth series. He has made many other introductions on subjects of Tolkien and Middle-earth elsewhere.
His own book, Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays: On Tolkien, the Inklings, and Fantasy Literature was published in 2023.
Tolkien articles et al.[]
- A chronology of The Silmarillion, published in Minas Tirith Evening-Star, vol. 7 (1977)
- "Yéni Únótimë: Calendars & Time-Keeping in Middle-earth" for Chronicles of the King, no. 4 (1978)
- "Is Always Coming Home Mythopoeic à la Tolkien?" in Mythprint, issue 86 (July 1987)
- "A Personal Guide Through the Tolkien Literature" and "On Fastitocalon and Cat" in issues of Beyond Bree (1987, 1988)
- "J.R.R. Tolkien: An Introduction to His Work" in Randy Dannenfelser's Adventures of Sword and Sorcery (1996)
- "Tolkien and the Counties of England: In Search of the Shire" in Mallorn, issue 37 (1999)
- "The Literary Value of The History of Middle-earth" in Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter's Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth (2000)
- "Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from The Lord of the Rings: A Textual Excursion into The History of The Lord of the Rings" in Mythlore, issue 22, no. 4
- "Summa Jacksonica: A Reply to Defenses of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Films, after St. Thomas Aquinas" in Janet Brennan Croft's Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings
- "The order to read Tolkien's books", at his own website (2003)
- "The Years' Work in Tolkien Studies 2001-2002" in Tolkien Studies, volume 2 (2005)
- "The Artistry of Omissions and Revisions in The Lord of the Rings" in Hammond & Scull's The Lord of the Rings 1954-2004 (2006)
- Entries for the Bodleian Library, Kôr, Bournemouth, Jim Dundas-Gran, Humphrey Havard, Ronald McCallum, mercy, The Peoples of Middle-earth, and three other topics in Michael D. C. Drout's J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment (2006)
- An appendix, "The Inklings: Their Lives and Works", for The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community
- "The Year's Work In Tolkien Studies" in each Tolkien Studies publication of the years 2004 through 2008
- "Hobbit Names Aren't From Kentucky" in The Ring Goes Ever On: Proceedings of the Tolkien 2005 Conference, vol. 2 (2008)
- "Liquid Tolkien: Music, Tolkien, Middle-earth, and More Music" in Bradford Lee Eden's Middle-earth Minstrel (2010)
- Reasons to read The Hobbit, featured on TheTolkienist.com (2012)
- "Shippey: The Philologist and the Critics", about Tom Shippey, in Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey (2014)
- "Studies in English on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien" on the Tolkien Estate's website
- "The Inklings and Others: Tolkien and His Contemporaries" in Stuart D. Lee's A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien
External links[]
- Official website
- A J.R.R. Tolkien Booklist (compiled in 2001)
- Personal blog
David Bratman at Wikipedia- David Bratman at Tolkienists.org