He illustrated many scenes from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sometimes drawing or painting as he was writing in order to visualize the imagined scene more clearly. He excelled at landscapes and often drew inspiration from his own stories. Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist who painted for pleasure and relaxation. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal, humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal. Tolkien’s most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by ancient and extraordinary peoples. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam Gimli the Dwarf Legolas the Elf Boromir of Gondor and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.

When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.įrom Sauron's fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien