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
Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, aimed at adult readers who enjoyed Tolkien's works. Lester Del Rey, however, sought for new books that would mirror Tolkien's work, and published Terry Brooks' "The Sword of Shannara", David Eddings's "Belgariad", and Stephen R. Donaldson's "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever". Guy Gavriel Kay, who had assisted Christopher Tolkien with the editing of "The Silmarillion", later wrote his own Tolkien-influenced fantasy trilogy, "The Fionavar Tapestry". Russian writer Nick Perumov was able to publish several fantasy novels set in Tolkien's Middle-Earth after the events of "The Lord of the Rings" (due to a loophole