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 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