Today, #WorldBookDay, I taught Philippa Pearce’s award-winning novel Tom’s Midnight Garden. We talked about time-slip fantasies, the garden as a childhood space, the links of this novel with Peter Pan, historical constructions of childhood, and intergenerational empathy.
What are you reading today?
Lovely to receive my copy of Catherine Fisher’s The Candleman, part of @fireflypress.bsky.social’s Classics from Wales series. It was a real pleasure to write the introduction for this one! If you haven’t read it, it’s an ideal gift for young (and older!) fantasy readers! 🕯️ 🏴
Celebrating the Centenary of A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS
A 2020 conversation between Lindsay specialist Douglas A. Anderson, Prof @rokewood.bsky.social, & author Nina Allan, discussing the novel & its influence on #fantasy, hosted by Prof @dimitrafimi.bsky.social
💙📚
4/4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6Hp...
Calling all naturalists! Is this a pine marten in my Scottish garden???!!! (I think the tail is too bushy for a stoat or weasel? But not sure at all!)
When did the tiny fairy trope begin? In today’s piece (part 1 of 2) I’m considering this question, looking at the work of Minor White Latham and Katharine Briggs in the 20th century. In my next piece I’ll bring us up to date with current research. 🧚
dimitrafimi.substack.com/p/when-did-t...
Spring is springing! 🌸
Today I taught Mary Norton’s The Borrowers, using my “little Victorian/Edwardian things” collection of objects. My little Arrietty model is cut to size from the illustrations of Beth and Joe Krush.
Yesterday + today I taught Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights (The Golden Compass in the US). We discussed resonances with Milton’s Paradise Lost and Blake’s poetry/art, how Dust + Daemons function in Lyra’s world, the fantasy/SF blend in Pullman’s worldbuilding, and the cost of opening portals.
Ah, that’s interesting - the term “paracosms” in children’s lit/childhood studies refers to worlds children make while playing (often invested on and expanded over a longer period).
Yup, working on another piece on the “thumbling” folklore motif so will be coming back to all of those! 😊
New piece, in which I’m tracing the origins of the little people and tiny worlds tradition back to the early modern period (with Tolkien’s “On Fairy-stories as a touchstone)
dimitrafimi.substack.com/p/little-peo...
@tolkiensociety.org @folkloresociety.bsky.social
Yesterday’s children’s fantasy class was on Richard Adams’ Watership Down: we discussed Lapine language and mythology, the text’s sources and epigraphs, as well as the way in which the novel asks readers to think about nature, animality, and death.
Yesterday and today I taught C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe alongside Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi. These two books spoke to each other beautifully - there are clear allusions in the latter to the former, of course, but there is so much more that links them!
We've just sent out proposal decisions for Fantasy's Present Pasts (Glasgow, 23rd-25th June 2026) - if you submitted a proposal, check your inbox! If you haven't heard from us and think you should have done, please drop us an email (using the Centre address, arts-fantasy@glasgow.ac.uk).
Latest piece, in which I’m trying to puzzle out Tolkien’s strange little reference in a draft of “On Fairy-stories” to a plate his daughter Priscilla had been given. Featuring fairies and other insectoid beings!
dimitrafimi.substack.com/p/why-did-to...
@tolkiensociety.org @uofgfantasy.bsky.social
Latest piece, in which I’m trying to puzzle out Tolkien’s strange little reference in a draft of “On Fairy-stories” to a plate his daughter Priscilla had been given. Featuring fairies and other insectoid beings!
dimitrafimi.substack.com/p/why-did-to...
@tolkiensociety.org @uofgfantasy.bsky.social
In this piece I’m ruminating on the Mirror of Galadriel, and how this memorable scene in The Lord of the Rings may have come out of the “leaf-mould” of Tolkien’s mind, resurfacing out of his own early creative invention.
dimitrafimi.substack.com/p/tracing-a-...
Submitted today! Following a few years of rigorous peer-review and working with my co-editor @lukebshelton.bsky.social and many Tolkienists!
- 44 chapters
- 46 Tolkien scholars globally
- over 280K words overall
Still tons of work to do as proofs arrive, but feels like a moment to celebrate. ☺️
and the Lumsden’s Toy Books, a collection of early 19th-century chapbooks for children.
Shelf marks: Sp Coll Hepburn 99, Sp Coll RB 556, Level 4: JF MACDO8, and Sp Coll Bh13-c.28
3/3
Early edition of the Grimms' Fairy Tales (Edgar Taylor’s landmark translation, illustrated by George Cruikshank) and George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin (illustrated by Charles Folkard), 2/3
Thread: 🧵
Today’s Children’s Fantasy class was held at the Special Collections seminar room, Glasgow University Library. Among other rare books, we looked at:
a first edition of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871), with fifty illustrations by Tenniel, 1/3
This week I’ve taught Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl's Moving Castle, set in the fairy-tale world of Ingary with occasional visits to Wales! (and yes, my classes sang “Calcifer’s silly saucepan song” in Welsh! 🏴)
Art by Lulu Chen, Kateřina Čupová, Alejo and Vivian de los Rios Marietta, and Anna Wojtczak.
Some of the gorgeous cats at Meow Cat Cafe in Glasgow’s West End!
🐈⬛ 🐈 🐾
First snowdrops spotted in the garden! Spring can’t be too far away!
Agreed!
In this new piece I’m ruminating on J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and the complexities of Neverland: Is it a magical land or a construct of the imagination? And how does the idea of a window as a portal complicate things?
dimitrafimi.substack.com/p/where-or-w...
No spoilers please, but…
…lovely reference to the Doors of Durin in Stranger Things, S5E7!
If you know, you know!
#StrangerThings5 #Tolkien
🤣
Watching Meriadoc Brandybuck as a juvenile delinquent turned assistant detective wasn’t quite on my Bingo card this evening! (What a great concept for a series, though! We need more intergenerational stuff on TV!)
#HettyWainthroppInvestigates
Oh yes, that was my first ever copy too!
