Concept
J. R. R. Tolkien
Overview
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and academic philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955).
From 1925 to 1945 Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, and held these positions from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a devout Catholic and a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the Inklings, an informal literary discussion group. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.
After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and, within it, Middle-earth. Between 1951 and 1955 Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings.
While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the tremendous success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings ignited a profound interest in the fantasy genre and ultimately precipitated an avalanche of new fantasy books and authors. This has led to his popular identification as the "father" of modern fantasy literature. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential authors of all time.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
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When a book is favourably considered, an expert’s detailed report is very often laid before the author, who is asked to consider the suggestions made and to confer with the Delegates’ advisers; and this process of scrutiny is frequently far-reaching, the criticism being invited at one stage or another of a number of specialists in various fields. In this way many, perhaps most, of the books produced by the Press…
Oxford University Press, Some Account of the Oxford University Press, 1468-1921
Close in meaning to J. R. R. Tolkien; the term itself is not named.
And yet we are far from believing that this race has said its last word. After having put in practice all chivalries, devout and worldly, gone with Peredur in quest of the Holy Grail and fair ladies, and dreamed with St. Brandan of mystical Atlantides, who knows what it would produce in the domain of intellect, if it hardened itself to an entrance into the world, and subjected its rich and profound nature to the…
Michel de Montaigne, Literary and Philosophical Essays
Close in meaning to J. R. R. Tolkien; the term itself is not named.
Here is the parting speech his father made to him on fitting him out with a "long-ship" (ship of war, "dragon-ship," ancient seventy-four), and sending him forth to make a living for himself in the world: "It were best if thou never camest back, for I have small hope that thy people will have honor by thee; thy mother's kin throughout is slavish."
Thomas Carlyle, Early Kings of Norway
Close in meaning to J. R. R. Tolkien; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed J. R. R. Tolkien
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Part of Myth.