J. R. R. Tolkien members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972. After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including "The Silmarillion". These, together with "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings", form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and Middle-earth within it. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term "legendarium" to the
Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien chapter of "The Silmarillion", and there is also a half-hour setting of "The Lay of Eärendil" based on Bilbo's song at Rivendell (in the expanded version published by Christopher Tolkien in The Treason of Isengard). All the texts were used with permission of the Tolkien Estate and Harper Collins Publishers. The Tolkien Ensemble published four CDs from 1997 to 2005 with the aim to create "the world's first complete musical interpretation of the poems and songs from "The Lord of the Rings"". The project was given approval by both the Tolkien Estate and Harper Collins Publishers. Queen Margarethe II of