J. R. R. Tolkien in his lifetime, and was sometimes harshly disapproving. In 1946, he rejected suggestions for illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of "The Hobbit" as "too Disnified ... Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of". Tolkien was sceptical of the emerging Tolkien fandom in the United States, and in 1954 he returned proposals for the dust jackets of the American edition of "The Lord of the Rings": He had dismissed dramatic representations of fantasy in his essay "On Fairy-Stories", first presented in 1939: Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien by the UK's "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found "The Lord of the Rings" to be their favourite work of literature. Tolkien wrote a brief "Sketch of the Mythology", which included the tales of Beren and Lúthien and of Túrin; and that sketch eventually evolved into the "Quenta Silmarillion", an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. Tolkien desperately hoped to publish it along with "The Lord of the Rings", but publishers (both Allen & Unwin and Collins) declined. Moreover, printing costs were very high in 1950s Britain, requiring "The Lord of the Rings" to be