J.R.R. TOLKIEN

The idea for Middle Earth, its characters, languages and mythology, was already in full ferment when John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, (1892-1973), descended into the trenches of WWI. But it wasn’t until Ronald, as he was called, succumbed to trench fever that the stories began to take shape. Convalescing in England, Tolkien learned that most of his close friends from school were killed in action; in memory of them, and in reaction to his experiences at war, he poured his heart and soul into the proto-tales that would become The Silmarillion and Lost Tales. Later, as Professor of English Literature at Oxford, a bored Tolkien scribbled a single line on an Oxford student’s answer pad: “In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit.” What exactly was a hobbit? He determined to find out…and the rest is history. Today, The Hobbit and Tolkien’s masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, are considered the quintessential foundations of epic fantasy.