Elves in fiction Norse-style elves. However, the elves found in the works of the 20th-century philologist and fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien have formed the view of elves in modern fantasy like no other singular source. The first appearance of modern fantasy elves occurred in "The King of Elfland's Daughter", a 1924 novel by Lord Dunsany. The next modern work featuring elves was "The Hobbit", a 1937 novel by J. R. R. Tolkien. Elves played a major role in many of Tolkien's later works, notably "The Lord of the Rings". Tolkien's elves were followed by grim Norse-style elves of human size in
J. R. R. Tolkien to Humphrey Carpenter: Edith Tolkien died on 29 November 1971, at the age of 82. According to Simon Tolkien: Tolkien was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1972 New Year Honours and received the insignia of the Order at Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1972. In the same year Oxford University conferred upon him an honorary Doctorate of Letters. Tolkien had the name Lúthien engraved on Edith's tombstone at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When Tolkien died 21 months later on 2 September 1973 from a bleeding ulcer and chest infection, at