Thomas Alan Shippey (b. 1943) is a scholar of medieval literature and Anglo-Saxon as well as modern science fiction and fantasy.
Shippey's early scholastic career followed that of fantasy writer and scholar J.R.R. Tolkien. Like Tolkien, Shippey attended King Edward's School in Birmingham, England and taught Old English at St. John's College in Oxford. Shippey also inherited Tolkien's chair as Professor of English Language at Leeds. Shippey currently teaches at St. Louis University in the United States, where he is the Walter J. Ong Chair of Humanities.
Shippey has written two books about J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle-Earth, The Road to Middle-Earth and J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, and has also edited The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories and The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories, two anthologies containing short fiction from some of the biggest names in the fantasy and scifi genres over the past 100+ years. | 
