The Road to Middle-Earth The Road to Middle-Earth The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology is a scholarly study of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien written by Tom Shippey. In Great Britain it was first published by Allen & Unwin in 1982, with a second edition published in 1993 by Harper Collins and a revised and expanded third edition published in 2003. It is currently published by Houghton Mifflin in the United States. The book discusses the sources of Tolkien's inspiration in creating the world of Middle-earth and the writing of works including "The Hobbit", "The
J. R. R. Tolkien "Shireplitis tolkieni". In 2004, the extinct hominid "Homo floresiensis" was described, and quickly earned the nickname "hobbit" due to its small size. In 1978, Paleontologist Leigh Van Valen named over 20 taxa of extinct mammals after Tolkien lore in a single paper. In 1999, entomologist Lauri Kaila described 48 new species of "Elachista" moths and named 37 of them after Tolkien mythology. It has been noted that "Tolkien has been accorded formal taxonomic commemoration like no other author." Since 2003 The Tolkien Society has organized Tolkien Reading Day, which takes place on 25 March in schools around the world. There