"Tolkien doesn't play with the kind of whimsy a lot of American fantasy writers, such as E.B.
The original Hobbit's Dwarven companions are wandering exiles on a mission to recapture their kingdom, and the story ends with a political standoff between Elves, Dwarves and the Men of Laketown that only resolves with the appearance of an Orc army. Frank Baum's Oz books, a sense of consequence and reality permeated the world of Bilbo Baggins, despite the inclusion of magic rings and dragons. "That doesn't sound terribly radical, but it was an absolute change." In contrast to stories such as P.L. "What Tolkien does is take the 'otherworld' fantasy developed in the 19th century and makes it child-sized, melding it with folklore and Norse myth," says Farah Mendlesohn, a scholar of science fiction and fantasy and author of Rhetorics of Fantasy. Although shorter and more light-hearted than its epic big brother The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's first novel casts a long shadow of its own, redefining the idea of children's fantasy. Tolkien's first mark on the genre came with the publication of The Hobbit in 1937. All of this is the unintended consequence of Tolkien's phenomenal success as an author and artist. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books) becoming a cultural touchstone for the 21st century and blockbusters such as the Harry Potter films-not to mention Peter Jackson's adaptations of Tolkien's books-cleaning up at the box office, with the combined box-office gross of those franchises topping $4 billion. Not only do fantasy books top bestseller lists around the world, but the genre's reach has extended beyond the printed page to movies and television, with HBO's Game of Thrones (based on George R. The contributions contained in those novels set a template still followed by writers of fantasy, a genre that has only ballooned in popularity since Tolkien's day, largely due to the author's phenomenal success. The British author didn't invent fantasy, but he defined it in the minds of millions with his seminal works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien on the genre remains a fundamental certainty. Scholars, academics and casual enthusiasts have spilled tons of ink (both of the real and virtual varieties) about the exact definition of fantasy (does an epic poem such as Beowulf count?) and the genre's origins (do Greek myths qualify? Romantic poems from the Middle Ages?).
This article, and others about one of the most celebrated writers, is featured in Newsweek's Special Edition: J.R.R.
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