Beowulf’s Legacy – Information

“This is more than just a compilation of stories: it is a window into an ancient world, provided by those who know that world best. It is a world before Christianity, a time of heroism and ancient gods, of great warriors and powerful demons. A world removed from ours only by time, and while often forgotten by us, never truly lost.”

— Editor’s Introduction

Beowulf is a truly remarkable poem, partly because it alludes to a much more vivid and complete world than is actually revealed. Several side stories are mentioned, such as the burning of Heorot, but never actually told in full. Beowulf’s Legacy is a collection of short stories by some of the leading minds in the field of Beowulf studies, telling exactly these stories.

About the Authors

Cherith Baldry was born in Lancaster, UK, and studied English at Manchester University and St. Anne’s College, Oxford. After working as a teacher, she is now a full-time writer. Her published novels are for children, her short fiction is principally for adults, and has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, Odyessey, and the Arthurian anthologies edited by Mike Ashley, among others. She has a special interest in myth and legend, especially in Arthurian myth.

George Clark is a professor of English at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, teaching Beowulf and Old Norse. He has published articles on such subjects as Beowulf, Njalssaga, the alliterative Morte Arthure, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Golding.

Mary Dockray-Miller teaches English in the College of Advancing Studies at Boston College. She is the author of Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England (St. Martin’s, 1999) and a variety of articles about Beowulf and other Old English poetry. Dr. Dockray-Miller lives in Sudbury, Massachusetts, with her husband and their two daughters.

Loren C. Gruber received his B.A. in English from Simpson College, 1963, his M.A. in English from Western Reserve University, 1964, and his Ph.D. in English from the University of Denver, 1972. There, he studied Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic literature. A prize winning freelance writer, Gruber’s articles and humor have appeared in a variety of publications. His short stories have appeared in Hodgepodge (Springfield, MO), and have earned him two Readers’ Choice awards and a trio of First Place awards in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

M. Wendy Hennequin is a Ph.D. candidate in English literature at the University of Connecticut. As part of her candidacy, she also teaches Freshman Composition and Literature and Composition. Professionally, she is interested in women in Medieval and Renaissance texts, historical approaches to literature, technology and teaching, and collaborative teaching and learning. She has been writing poetry — everything from sonnets to free verse — for about a dozen years, and fiction for more than a score. She also participates in the Society for Creative Anachronism under the name Mistress Fiana of Clare, where she participates in singing, story-telling, and archery.

Sarah L. Higley is an Anglo-Saxonist and Celticist at the University of Rochester, where she also teaches fiction writing. Her book, Between Languages: The Uncooperative Text in Early Welsh and Old English Nature Poetry, was published in 1993, and she has written several articles on Middle Welsh, Old English and Norse literature. She has had stories published in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Terra Incognita, and has also written for Star Trek: The Next Generation, where she created Lt. Barclay in Hollow Pursuits.

John M. Hill specializes in Old and Middle English literature at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he is a professor in the English Department. He has written books on Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Anglo-Saxon heroic story. Aside from scholarly writing he has written a screen play, a novel, and a dramatic adaptation of archival material about a Smithsonian expedition to the Arctic. He is the chairman of the board of The Writer’s Center, an arts organization for professional writers in all literary genres.

Joyce Tally Lionarons is Professor of English at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. She has published on Old English, Old Norse, and Middle High German literature, and is currently hard at work at a first novel set in Viking Age Norway.

Robert B. Marks finished his Bachelor’s degree in Medieval Studies at Queen’s University in early 1999. He is a prolific writer and editor, and he has also edited two shared world anthologies and written a novel and several short stories, with which he hopes to slowly but surely move up to professional status. His most recent publication was in the April 1999 issue of Computer Gaming World. He is right now an amateur Beowulf scholar, and is trying to work out new ways to write novels professionally and continue his Beowulf studies at the same time.

E.L. Risden is Associate Professor of English at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, USA. He has published two scholarly books, Beasts of Time: Apocalyptic Beowulf and Beowulf: A Student’s Edition (a translation of the poem), plus articles on Medieval and Renaissance studies, reviews, poetry, and short fiction including Grendel’s Mother, the Beowulf story from the she-beast’s point of view.

Tom Shippey taught at Oxford, overlapping chronologically with Professor Tolkien and teaching the same syllabus, giving him an intimate familiarity with the poems and the languages which formed the main stimulus to Tolkien’s imagination. He has most recently been working with Harry Harrison on novels set in the Viking Age.

Daniel Timmons has his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. His dissertation was on J.R.R. Tolkien, the highly respected Beowulf scholar and author of the great “fantasy” works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Timmons also did a Master’s thesis on Beowulf at Queen’s University, Kingston. He has published several articles on Tolkien, William Golding, and theories of “fantasy” literature. Timmons is the co-editor of a collection of new essays on Tolkien that analyzes the literary resonances of the author’s works, ranging from ancient texts, such as Beowulf, to contemporary critical thought. Finally, he has published fantasy poetry and fiction.