The Translation and Visualization of Tolkien’s The Hobbit into Swedish, the Aesthetics of Fantasy, and Tove Jansson’s Illustrations

J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954) were instrumental in establishing fantasy as a publishing genre. At the outset, however, there were no established models or conventions for how (or even if) fantasy should be illustrated, and Tolkien’s own writings on the aesthetics of fantasy, as well as his own illustrations, have inspired later artists, but have also led to a visual orthodoxy on how Middle Earth and its inhabitants should be portrayed. In this chapter it is argued that by looking at the early translations and transmediations of Tolkien’s work we can get a glimpse of alternative ways in which his work can be (and was) interpreted.