When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.” So began The Fellowship
of the Ring, the first book in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which turns 70 this month. He had started writing – and illustrating – it in 1937, the year The Hobbit was first published and became a runaway success. His publishers requested a sequel, which, after the hefty manuscript finally arrived, they decided should be published in three parts in the UK between July 1954 and October 1955. It got some mixed reviews – though ones from Oxford University acquaintances CS Lewis and WH Auden were glowing – and it began to sell rather well. This photo of Professor Tolkien was taken in his study at Merton College the year after Fellowship was first published, a time when his writing and academic commitments were interrupted by answering fanmail.
