Usually divided into three volumes, Tolkien meant The Lord of the Rings to be a single work that followed the quest to destroy the One Ring and see the King of Gondor return at the end of the Third Age. It fell to his son Christopher to take on the job after his death and was eventually published in 1977. There were so many versions to correlate – and conflicting, confusing details to rectify and craft into a narrative – that Tolkien never knew how to complete the book. The Silmarillion charts the creation of the Universe and the ancient peoples of the First Age, but he never finished tinkering and rewriting over the five decades from its inception. Tolkien considered this, not The Lord of the Rings, to be his masterpiece. Read more | Dragons: from mythological beasts of history to the fire breathers of fantasy.It sold out quickly and had to be swiftly reprinted, this time with several coloured illustrations from Tolkien himself. The Hobbit was developed from stories Tolkien told to entertain his children and the book launched him to fame when first published in 1937. The party of dwarves was led by the wizard Bladorthin and the chief dwarf Gandalf they were the original names of Gandalf the Grey and Thorin Oakenshield respectively.
He tried to respond to as many fan letters as he could, and initially his number remained in the telephone directory – so fans from across the globe would ring at all hours to ask him for details about the minutiae of his mythology.Īnd with son Christopher publishing his father’s work ever since – not to mention Peter Jackson’s blockbuster movies – there’s an enduring fascination in these great works of fantasy and Middle Earth.īilbo the hobbit reluctantly joins an expedition to retrieve the fabulous treasure of the dwarves being hoarded in the Lonely Mountain by the dragon, Smaug.
While he accomplished extraordinary things with his writing, Tolkien led an ordinary life in many ways, even after becoming a world-famous author. He published The Hobbit two years before World War II, and it took another 17 years after that for his long-awaited sequel, The Lord of the Rings, to hit the shelves. He began work on what would become The Silmarillion during World War I, but it would still not be finished at the time of his death at the age of 81 on 2 September 1973. Tolkien couldn’t be described as the world’s most prolific author, but his books enjoy long-lasting and constantly renewing love.
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