J. R. R. Tolkien, English writer, 1892-1973

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer, poet, philologist, and academic. He was the author of the classic high fantasy works "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings", serving as a Professor of English Language and Literature in Oxford until 1959. After Tolkien's death, his son published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including "The Silmarillion". These, together with "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings", form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and Middle-earth. Tolkien is popularly identified as the "father" of high fantasy.