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 children, came in 1936 to the attention of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the London publishing firm George Allen & Unwin, who persuaded Tolkien to submit it for publication. When it was published a year later, the book attracted adult readers as well as children, and it became popular enough for the publishers to ask Tolkien to produce a sequel. The request for a sequel prompted Tolkien to begin what would become his most famous work: the epic novel "The Lord of the Rings" (originally published in three volumes 1954–1955). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative