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 For this purpose it is generally edited into 13 one-hour episodes. Following J. R. R. Tolkien's sale of the film rights for "The Lord of the Rings" to United Artists in 1969, rock band The Beatles considered a corresponding film project and approached Stanley Kubrick as a potential director; however, Kubrick turned down the offer, explaining to John Lennon that he thought the novel could not be adapted into a film due to its immensity. The eventual director of the film adaptation Peter Jackson further explained that a major hindrance to the project's progression was Tolkien's opposition to the involvement