Fifty years ago J.R.R. Tolkien was answering fan mail with no real inkling of the success of The Lord of the Rings. In his Letters, his first acknowledgment of substantial payment was sent out in May 1957.

By January of 1956 Tolkien had already listened to the first BBC radio adaptation of his book. He had committed to working another two years. And he was dreaming (somewhat wistfully) of turning back to work on The Silmarillion, which he never really did despite making some hand edits on copies of old manuscripts as a pre-emptive measure to retelling the entire cycle.

In fifty years, Middle-earth was trasnformed from a fantasy story to a canonical jungle filled with perilous paths of logic that only the boldest, bravest readers dare tread. I don't think he would much recognize the Middle-earth that artists, poets, and musicians have created in his memory. Their visions are not his.

Don't believe me? So difficult is the challnge of writing appropriately reverant Tolkien fan fiction that a definitive guide to writing Tolkien fan fiction was published in September 2005.

On a more serious note, however, there are people studying the Tolkien fan fiction community (look for the listings that mention surveys). And the fan fiction community is gradually taking on a much more professional appearance.

The day may come when the general perception of Tolkien's Middle-earth is more shaped by fan fiction than by movies or Internet debates. Movies retire to DvD stores, but fan fiction remains on the Net.

Fan Fiction communities now vote on The MEFA Awards and The Mithril Awards for Tolkien Fan Fiction. Being nominated for an award is not necessarily an easy process. One of my readers nominated about a dozen of my essays and Parma Endorion for the 2005 MEFA Awards. I think three works survived the process (although it was my understanding that they were unprepared for professional work submissions).

The study of fandom has a name: Fanthropology. The study of Tolkien fandom has yet to become its own sub-branch, but I suppose this Web site makes a gentle effort in that direction. And yet I would say that the study of Tolkien Fan Fiction would itself require a dedicated community of researchers.

When I tried to document online citations of my work for my official Web site, I was overwhelmed while sifting through fan fiction and gave up after collecting only a few listings. Many of the fan fiction authors were citing other sources, not just my essays. The practice of documenting sources is, so far as I can determine, fairly well developed.

Fan fiction authors want to be taken seriously by Tolkien purists, at least by as many purists as have any interest in Tolkien fan fiction. In the Tolkien Forum at SF-Fandom one of our regular posters writes fan fiction with a keen interest in applying as many canonical facts from Tolkien's world as possible.

Fan artists and essayists have driven the bulk of Tolkien research for the past 30-40 years, but I think that fan fiction will eventually come to dominate the research resources. Professional writers who publish historical novels (even in Romance, or perhaps especially in Romance) devote considerable time and effort to historical research. Tolkien's literature is so extensive that he can easily provide fan fiction writers with a great amount of depth.

The devotion, dedication, and desire are all present in the fan fiction community. And fan fiction isn't dependent upon movies or stage productions. In fact, it's an outlet for creative minds and hearts. As long as the passion for some semblance of faithfulness to Tolkien thrives among fan fiction writers, I believe they will build a formidable community of researchers.

More importantly, I think they will write a significant portion of legitimate Tolkien research in years to come. So the sooner we begin to study these legions of mini-Tolkiens, the greater the depth of our understanding of Tolkien's reach into the 21st century will become.