J. R. R. Tolkien J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, (; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor who is best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings", and "The Silmarillion". He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both
The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion (2005) is a nonfiction book written by scholars Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. It is an annotated reference to J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". Hammond and Scull proceed chapter-by-chapter from the original foreword through to the end of "The Lord of the Rings". Appendices, examining the evolution of the text, changes, inconsistencies, and errors, often using comments from Tolkien's own notes and letters. Other sections cover the numerous maps of Middle-earth, chronologies of the story and its writing, and