The Map of Tolkien’s Middle-earth

BRIAN SIBLEY is a writer and broadcaster with a life-long interest in fantasy books and cinema. His fascination with J. R. R. Tolkien and the myths and history of Middle-earth first led to his critically-acclaimed 26-part BBC radio dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings in which the role of Frodo was played by Ian Holm, who went on to portray Bilbo in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, a role he is now reprising inThe Hobbit. Brian’s subsequent radio dramas included several of Tolkien’s short novels collected under the title Tales from the Perilous Realm, C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, two series of Tales of the Bizarre by Ray Bradbury, novels by Roald Dahl, J B Priestley and James Thurber as well as Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan and Gormenghast which won him the prestigious Sony Radio Award. A recent return to Peake country resulted in a six-hour serialisation entitled The History of Titus Groan, recipient of the 2012 BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Dramatisation. His books include Three Cheers for Pooh, Chicken Run: Hatching the Movie, The Making of The Pirates!, Cracking Animation, The Disney Studio Story, The Book of Guinness Advertising, The Land of Narnia and Shadowlands, as well as his collaboration with John Howe on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Maps of Middle-earth. Following on from his award-winning accounts of the making of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and his official biography, Peter Jackson: A Filmmaker's Journey, Brian returns to chronicle the making of the The Hobbit.