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 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