David Bratman

David Stephen Bratman was born on 31 March 1957 in Chicago, Illinois, to Robert Bratman, a physician, and his wife Nancy, an editor. He was one of four sons. The family lived in Cleveland, Ohio, and later in California.

His interest in Tolkien began at the age of 11, when a teacher read The Hobbit aloud to his class. While still in high school in the mid 1970s he joined the Mythopoeic Society, which studies Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams and the other Inklings. He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and took his Master of Library and Information Science at the University of Washington.

Bratman worked as an academic librarian at Stanford University, San Jose State University and Santa Clara University before retiring.

He published on Tolkien from 1977. He edited Mythprint, the Mythopoeic Society's newsletter, from 1980 to 1995 and served for many years as a Steward, or director, of the society. He edited and contributed to the journal Tolkien Studies and wrote for Mythlore, including a 2001 article on R. B. McCallum.

His work included 13 entries in the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, the chapter "The Inklings and Others: Tolkien and His Contemporaries" in A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien (2014), an appendix on the Inklings in Diana Pavlac Glyer's The Company They Keep, and essays in Tolkien's Legendarium, Tolkien on Film and The Lord of the Rings 1954-2004. After finding copies of Charles Williams's Masques of Amen House at the Wade Center in 1995, he published an annotated edition in 2000. In 2023 the Mythopoeic Press published Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays, a collection of his writing on Tolkien, the Inklings and other fantasy authors.

In science fiction fandom he and his friend Seth Goldberg administered the Hugo Awards at ConFrancisco (1993), ConAdian (1994) and L.A.con III (1996). He also reviewed classical concerts for Bay Area newspapers and San Francisco Classical Voice.

Bratman was married to Berni Phillips. Friends described a sharp, sometimes dogged critic with a dry sense of humour and a warm side, and a deep knowledge of classical music, though he played no instrument. He wrote for many years on his blog, Kalimac's Corner. In 2022 he was guest of honour at Mythcon, the Mythopoeic Society's annual conference.

During October 2026 Bratman wrote on his blog about medical problems, hospitalisations, surgery and rehabilitation, and friends were later told privately that doctors had reached the limits of what they could do for him. He died on 9 November 2026, aged 69. No specific cause of death was made public.

His wife, Berni Phillips, announced his death. His funeral was held on 13 November 2026 in the chapel at Hills of Eternity Cemetery in Colma, California, with burial following. She suggested donations to the Mythopoeic Society, a local library or a classical orchestra in place of flowers. Tributes were published by File 770, the Tolkien Society and Elfenomeno.

Bratman is remembered as one of the most knowledgeable and prolific writers on Tolkien and the Inklings outside the professional academy, a self described gifted amateur whose criticism and bibliographic work appeared in the field's main reference books and journals. His long editorship of Mythprint and his service to the Mythopoeic Society helped sustain a community of readers and scholars for decades.