J. R. R. Tolkien imitate Morris's prose and poetry romances, from which he took hints for the names of features such as the Dead Marshes in "The Lord of the Rings" and Mirkwood, along with some general aspects of approach. Edward Wyke-Smith's "The Marvellous Land of Snergs", with its "table-high" title characters, strongly influenced the incidents, themes, and depiction of Bilbo's race in "The Hobbit". Tolkien also cited H. Rider Haggard's novel "She" in a telephone interview: "I suppose as a boy "She" interested me as much as anything—like the Greek shard of Amyntas [Amenartas], which was the kind of machine by which everything
J. R. R. Tolkien and Lúthien. On 3 November 1920, Tolkien was demobilized and left the army, retaining his rank of lieutenant. His first civilian job after World War I was at the "Oxford English Dictionary", where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter "W". In 1920, he took up a post as reader in English language at the University of Leeds, becoming the youngest professor there. While at Leeds, he produced "A Middle English Vocabulary" and a definitive edition of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" with E. V. Gordon; both became academic