John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century because,he was the first to create the fantasy world, many more works have been inspired by him, and the legacy he created is still alive today. Tolkien was also an accomplished academic. During his life he was a professor at Oxford University, and was well respected by many of the students that attended. Throughout the course of his life he created a fantasy world that is still alive, as well as thriving today. As a youth, Tolkien took up a fascination with languages. He most likely got this from his mother who was fluent in English, French, and German(Carpenter 17). Tolkien was mainly interested in old celtic languages, probably because this was the …show more content…
He had decided to make an entire mythology based on one of his languages(Carpenter 90). He knew that this would be no easy task. He would work on it for a short while, take a break, and then come back to it(Chandler). He decide to title this work The Silmarillion. The Silmarillion was changed and edited has Tolkien had written his other works(Chandler). The Silmarillion was not even published until four years after his death.
As Tolkien was working on his Mythology, he decided that he wanted to expand the world that he had created. He decided that he wanted to take a different approach with this one and decide to make it so that children could read it(Carpenter 177). He wanted the story to be based on a creature that he had created in The Silmarillion(Carpenter 178). So Tolkien decided to go with hobbits, going so far as to even titled his book The Hobbit. The hobbit to which the title of the book refers, is named Bilbo Baggins(Carpenter 179). Tolkien has said that the character Bilbo is largely based on him and his personal life(Chandler). The story itself is about a middle aged hobbit named Bilbo Baggins, who has fairly uninteresting life, is all of the sudden whisked away on a wild adventure throughout middle earth(Carpenter