H i s    W o r k

Tolkien is most famous for his writings of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and the lesser known The Silmarillion.

Most people do not realise that he has also written many other books, including Farmer Giles of Ham. Many of these other works included the enormous treatise on the history of Middle Earth, the mythical world within which The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is set.

His literary works spanned his entire life begining with his first published work (A poem "The Battle of the Eastern Field", for The King Edward School Chronicle) in 1911. He also did reports on meetings to the school debating team. His last published work was after his death, and one Roverandom was published as late as 1998! All of these publications after Tolkien's death were organised by Chrisopher Tolkien. He completed the work "The book of Lost Tales" as well as "The Father Christmas Letters which were published in 1984. Tolkien was a prolific and enthuastic author and his published works must be well into the hundreds.

The most famous and significant works for which we remember Tolkien are The Hobbit and the sequal The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit was first created by Tolkien as a bedtime story for his children. One day while working at Oxford University while he was marking essay papers, he found a blank essay and started writing "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" This was to be the first line in the book, The Hobbit. Tolkien later took the work to all of the publishers, all of whom turned him down except Allen and Unwin. George Allen's son was given the task of reading and reviewing the work. It was due to his sheer enthusiasm that The Hobbit was ever published. When it was published in 1937 it was an immediate success as a children's book. The Hobbit tells the story of a hobbit, Bilbo. A hobbit is a being about 3-4 feet in height with hairy feet. Bilbo enters into an adventure with Dwarves and a wizard by the name of gandalf. They set off to retrieve treasure from the dragon, Smaug. It is full of adventure, drama, danger and fantasy.

The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy which follows on from the story told in The Hobbit. The first book, The Fellowship of the Ring was published in 1954 as was the second book, The Two Towers. The final book The Return of the King was published a year later. Unlike The Hobbit it is a book written for adults. Its themes are darker, and its lanuguage more complex. It tells the tale of Bilbo's nephew, Frodo, entrusted with a ring of power that if it falls into the wrong hands, could destroy the whole of Middle Earth. Frodo's mission is to take the ring of power and cast it into the fires for of Mount Doom, for that is the only way that it can be destroyed. He has the help of his gardener and friend Sam, as well as two othe hobbits Merry and Pippin. With the help of Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Boromir and others he helps battle orcs, giant spiders, goblins, trolls and the evil fighting Uruk-Hai.

The Lord of the Rings was a huge success the moment that it was published. Indeed today, it is the second most popular book after the Bible. It has recently been made into the enormously popular (and wonderful :D) film by Peter Jackson.

The books are a work of genius. Through these books Tolkien had invented five languages including Quenya, Sindarin and Black Speech. He created a complex historical background, covering the creating of kingdoms and the rise of man.

Tolkien invented these histories because he thought that Britian had no mythology because of the early arrival of the Normans. Tolkien created not just brilliant books, but a mythology.

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