Houghton Mifflin, Tolkien ’ s American hardcover publisher, had neglected to protect the work in the United States.

Tolkien had authorized a paperback edition of The Hobbit in 1961, though that edition was never made available outside the U. K.

" Another joke puts a question concerning the definition of blunderbuss to " the four wise clerks of Oxenford " ( a reference to Chaucer's Clerk ; Tolkien had worked for Henry Bradley, one of the four main editors of the Oxford English Dictionary ):

Tolkien departed from this ; his work was nominally part of the history of our own world, but did not have the close linkage to history or contemporary times that his precursors had.

Tolkien: Master of Middle-earth ," which describes the impact Tolkien's writings had on him, is featured in the following titles:

Chance compares the development and growth of Bilbo against other characters to the concepts of just kingship versus sinful kingship derived from the Ancrene Wisse ( which Tolkien had written on in 1929 ) and a Christian understanding of Beowulf.

In many ways the Smaug episode reflects and references the dragon of Beowulf, and Tolkien uses the episode to put into practice some of the ground-breaking literary theories he had developed about the Anglo-Saxon poem and its early medieval portrayal of the dragon as having bestial intelligence.

Many of the thematic and stylistic differences arose because Tolkien wrote The Hobbit as a story for children, and The Lord of the Rings for the same audience, who had subsequently grown up since its publication.

Tolkien later assigned this name to an ancient king who had ordered some spears from the dwarves.

At the time he was cast, McKellen had never read any of Tolkien's works, but he quickly developed his knowledge of The Lord of the Rings and based his accent on Tolkien.

Language invention had always been tightly connected to the mythology that Tolkien developed, as he found that a language could not be complete without the history of the people who spoke it, just as these people could never be fully realistic if imagined only through the English language and as speaking English.

A natural consequence of this was that these " new " constructed languages had to be worked out by Tolkien in some details.

Tolkien writes that Smaug's rage was the kind which " is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy lose something they have long had but never before used or wanted.

Tolkien believed he had invented the word " hobbit " when he began writing The Hobbit ( it was revealed years after his death that the word predated Tolkien's usage, though with a different meaning ).

A reader once asked Tolkien whether the name Gondor had been inspired by the ancient Ethiopian citadel of Gondar.

Tolkien replied that he was unaware of having heard the word before, and that the root Ond went back to an account he had read as a child mentioning ond (" stone ") as one of only two words known of the pre-Celtic languages of Britain.

By the time Tolkien began rewriting " The Council of Elrond " a year later, he had developed a story that Aragorn's ancestors were in past Kings in Boromir's hometown.

The appendices to The Lord of the Rings were brought to a finished state in 1953 – 54, but a decade later, during preparations for the release of the Second Edition, Tolkien elaborated the events that had led to the Kin-strife and introduced the regency of Rómendacil II.

Tolkien claimed to be genuinely surprised when, in March 1956, he received a letter from one Sam Gamgee, who had heard that his name was in The Lord of the Rings but had not read the book.

The physical appearance of the valley of Rivendell may be based upon the Lauterbrunnental in Switzerland, where J. R. R. Tolkien had hiked in 1911.

When writing The Lord of the Rings Tolkien continued many of the themes he had set up in The Hobbit.

Tolkien says both " the Nine the nazgûl keep " and that Sauron had gathered the Nine to himself, though in the latter case his meaning may be metaphorical.

An early version of Appendix B (" The Tale of Years ") had him leading Dwarves from the ruin of Beleriand to found Khazad-dûm at the beginning of the Second Age ; but Tolkien abandoned that line.

There is, however, no authorial indication that Tolkien had a real-world metal in mind.

J. R. R. Tolkien is one of many scholars who have studied and promoted the Mercian dialect of Old English, and introduced various Mercian terms into his legendarium – especially in relation to the Kingdom of Rohan, otherwise known as the Mark ( a name cognate with Mercia ).

< span id =" Tolkien "/> One modern author who studied alliterative verse and used it extensively in his fictional writings and poetry, was J. R. R. Tolkien ( 1892 – 1973 ).

They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J. R. R. Tolkien, but his surreal fiction was influenced by his early love for Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson rather than Tolkien's studies of mythology and philology.

From the onset, Tolkien used comparative philology and the tree model as his major tools in his constructed languages.

It was initially written for presentation by Tolkien as the Andrew Lang lecture at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, in 1939.

Tolkien's opinion was adopted by another Christian writer, C. S. Lewis, in their conversations: " Tolkien explained to Lewis that the story of Christ was the true myth at the very heart of history and at the very root of reality.

The more regular members of the Inklings, many of them academics at the University, included J. R. R. " Tollers " Tolkien, C. S. " Jack " Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Tolkien's son Christopher, Lewis ' elder brother Warren or " Warnie ", Roger Lancelyn Green, Adam Fox, Hugo Dyson, R. A.

When Lean left Oxford during 1933, the society ended, and its name was transferred by Tolkien and Lewis to their group at Magdalen College.

The young Tolkien attempted a retelling of the story of Kullervo from the Kalevala in the style of The House of the Wolfings ; Tolkien considered much of his literary work to have been inspired by an early reading of Morris, even suggesting that he was unable to better Morris's work ; the names of characters such as " Gandolf " and the horse Silverfax appear in The Well at the World's End.

J. R. R. Tolkien began to construct his first Elfin tongue c. 1910 – 1911 while he was at the King Edward's School, Birmingham.

In the early 30s Tolkien decided that the proto-language of the Elves was Valarin, the tongue of the gods or Valar: " The language of the Elves derived in the beginning from the Valar, but they change it even in the learning, and moreover modified and enriched it constantly at all times by their own invention.

When Christopher Tolkien needed an assistant to edit his father J. R. R. Tolkien's unpublished work, he chose Kay, then a student at the University of Manitoba, whose parents were friends of Baillie Tolkien's parents.

From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was a Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, and a prominent critic of Beowulf — on which he gave a lecture at the British Academy in 1936.

Tolkien at the Tolkien Gateway

Frodo becomes in some ways the symbolic representation of the conscience of Hobbits, a point made explicitly in the story " Leaf by Niggle " which Tolkien wrote at the same time as the first nine chapters of The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien describes them as " fell beasts ", though Tolkien applies the adjective fell (" fierce, cruel ") to a variety of other creatures throughout The Lord of the Rings — even at one point to Gandalf.

Tolkien noted that the capital Minas Tirith was situated on a latitude comparable to that of Venice, and the total area of Gondor as represented on Tolkien's maps was estimated by Karen Wynn Fonstad at.

In the narrative of The Lord of the Rings, the westward target of the road appears as Min-Rimmon, but elsewhere it is stated that the valley ended at Nardol, where the quarries were located, and Christopher Tolkien showed that the former statement may be erroneous.

Ilmandur was discarded at once, but the fate of others remained fluid for some time ; Christopher Tolkien assumed that at first it was the son of Isildur that should have inherited the kingship, but was refused the entry into his city due to Sauron's machinations and went to the north.

Later Tolkien decided that the northern kingdom was founded at the same time with " Ondor ", as the southern realm was now renamed, and proposed Elendil and his brother Valandil as respective founders, before settling on the final conception of the co-reigning of Isildur and Anárion.

Next element to be introduced was the " Land of Seven Streams "; Tolkien was hesitant for some time about its relation to other places, writing at different times that it was located north or south of Black Mountains, within the Land of Ond or separate from it.

The need for a clearer image of the southern lands arose when Tolkien came to plan the narrative after the halt at Lothlórien.

In Unfinished Tales Tolkien writes that on the 20th of September in Gríma was captured by the Nazgûl in the fields of the Rohirrim, while on his way to Isengard to inform Saruman of Gandalf's arrival at Edoras.