User:MallornTea/First Tolkien biography

The question of who wrote the first biography of J.R.R. Tolkien is somewhat contested.

It is indisputable tha Daniel Grotta's 1976 book Architect of Miidle-earth came out before Humphrey Carpenter´s 1977 book J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography (which remains the only authorized biography to this day).

However, Åke Ohlmarks' 1972 book Sagan om Tolkien was referred to as the "first biography about Tolkien" in the dust jacket for his 1978 book Tolkiens arv. It is unclear if this claim was put forward by Ohlmarks himself or the publisher. According to swedish Tolkien scholar Anders Stenström (a.k.a "Beregond"):

It is not clearcut that Sagan om Tolkien is a biography. I have regarded it as a general presentation, a 'life and works' as much about the works as about the life (with a load of padding added for good measure)

This is hard to verify by non-swedish folk, since there aren't a lot of copies available (and even less in libraries near me), and even if digital copies were available, swedish is unfortunately not among usually among the languages non-swedish people speak (myself included).