John Ronald Reuel Tolkien as the father of modern fantasy literature.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892 –1973) was a South African-born, English philologist, writer and university professor who is best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as well as many other works. He was an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon language (1925 to 1945) and English language and literature (1945 to 1959). He was an orthodox Roman Catholic. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis; they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings.

In addition to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's published fiction includes The Silmarillion and other posthumously published books, which taken together is a connected body of tales, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about an imagined world called Arda, and Middle-earth (derived from the Old English word middangeard, the lands inhabitable by humans) in particular, loosely identified as an "alternative" remote past of our own world. Tolkien applied the word legendarium to the totality of these writings. Most of the posthumously published books were compiled from Tolkien's notes by his son Christopher Tolkien.

While fantasy authors such as William Morris, Robert E. Howard and E. R. Eddison preceded Tolkien, the great success and enduring influence of his works have led to him being popularly identified as the "father of modern fantasy literature". In any case, Tolkien's work has had an indisputable and lasting effect on the field and related media; many fantasy settings like Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer Fantasy owe much of their mythology, directly or indirectly, to him.

Tolkien's other published fiction includes stories not directly related to his legendarium, some of them originally told to his children.

Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and in his religious and political views he was mostly conservative, in the sense of favouring established conventions and orthodoxies over innovation and modernization.

Tolkien was strongly influenced by English history and legends which he often confessed his love for, but he also drew influence from Celtic - i.e. Scottish and Welsh - history and legends as well from many other European countries, namely Scandinavia and Germany. He was also influenced by Anglo-Saxon literature, Germanic and Norse mythologies, Finnish mythology and the Bible. The works most often cited as sources for Tolkien's stories include Beowulf, the Kalevala, the Poetic Edda, the Volsunga saga and the Hervarar saga. Tolkien himself acknowledged Homer, Sophocles, and the Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas. His borrowings also came from numerous Middle English works and poems. A major philosophical influence on his writing is King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy known as the Lays of Boethius. Characters in The Lord of the Rings such as Frodo, Treebeard, and Elrond make noticeably Boethian remarks. Also, Catholic theology and imagery played a part in fashioning his creative imagination, suffused as it was by his deeply religious spirit.

Main fiction works:

1937 The Hobbit or There and Back Again,

The Lord of the Rings

1954 The Fellowship of the Ring: being the first part of The Lord of the Rings (2001 –the film by Peter Jackson),

1954 The Two Towers: being the second part of The Lord of the Rings (2002 – the film by Peter Jackson),

1955 The Return of the King: being the third part of The Lord of the Rings (2003–the film by Peter Jackson).