The Tolkien Reader

An invitation to Tolkien's world. This rich treasury includes Tolkien's most beloved short fiction plus his essay on fantasy. FARMER GILES OF HAM. An imaginative history of the distant and marvelous past that introduces the rather unheroic Farmer Giles, whose efforts to capture a somewhat untrustworthy dragon will delight readers everywhere. THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BOMBADIL. A collection of verse in praise of Tom Bombadil, that staunch friend of the Hobbits in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. ON FAIRY-STORIES. Professor Tolkien's now-famous essy on the form of the fairy story and the treatment of fantasy.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. After serving in World War I, he embarked upon a distinguished academic career and was recognized as one of the finest philologists in the world. He was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, a fellow of Pembroke College, and a fellow of Merton College until his retirement in 1959. He is, however, beloved throughout the world as the creator of Middle-earth and author of such classic works as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He died on September 2, 1973, at the age of eighty-one.