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Tolkien’s Spanish Connection
We’ve just written a review of a useful book by José Manuel Ferrández Bru, “Uncle Curro”: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Spanish Connection.
The ‘connection’ is Father Francis Xavier Morgan, the Catholic priest who acted as guardian to Ronald and Hilary Tolkien after the death of their mother in 1904.
Father Francis famously forbade Tolkien from seeing or writing to his beloved, Edith Bratt, for three years, until he came of age at twenty-one; but one can argue that this was for Tolkien’s own good, hard though it was, as it brought his attention back to his studies (extra-curricular interests such as Gothic, the invention of languages, and the writing of poetry notwithstanding).
Ferrández Bru explores the life and ancestry of Father Francis in great detail, as well as his close relationship with the Tolkiens.
Our review can be read in the online Journal of Tolkien Research.
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