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 (1955 radio series) If that is attempted, it needs more space, a lot of space. [...] Personally, I think it requires rather the older art of the reading 'mime', than the more nearly dramatic, which results in too great an emphasis on dialogue (mostly with its setting removed). [...] I feel you have had a very hard task." ("The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien", Letter 194, 6 November 1956) [Replying to his publisher concerning an enquiry about the possibility of making a cartoon of "The Lord of the Rings"]: "I think I should find vulgarization less painful than the sillification achieved by