Dr. Verlyn Flieger smiles broadly at us, her grey blue eyes snapping with brilliance, her short, wavy salt-and-mahogany hair casual. She is standing outdoors on a beautifully sunlit day. Those dimples speak of a lifetime of joy at new discoveries and communicating her learning to others.

Verlyn Flieger, PhD.

VERLYN FLIEGER is Professor Emerita in the Department of English at the University of Maryland, where for 36 years she taught courses in Tolkien, Medieval Literature, and Comparative Mythology. She is the author of five critical books on the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, Splintered Light, A Question of Time, Interrupted Music, Green Suns and Faërie: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien, and There Would Always Be A Fairy Tale: More Essays on Tolkien. She edited the Extended Edition of Tolkien’s Smith of Wootton Major. With Carl Hostetter she edited Tolkien’s Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth, and with Douglas A. Anderson she edited the Expanded Edition of Tolkien On Fairy-Stories. With Michael D.C. Drout and Douglas A. Anderson she was a founder of the yearly journal Tolkien Studies.

Works in the Collaboratory: