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 of Joseph Stalin. During World WarII, Tolkien referred to Stalin as "that bloodthirsty old murderer". However, in 1961, Tolkien sharply criticized a Swedish commentator who suggested that "The Lord of the Rings" was an anti-communist parable and identified Sauron with Stalin. Tolkien said, "I utterly repudiate any such "reading", which angers me. The situation was conceived long before the Russian revolution. Such allegory is entirely foreign to my thought." Tolkien vocally opposed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party before the Second World War, and was known to especially despise Nazi racist and anti-semitic ideology. In 1938, the publishing house Rütten