A writer of fantasies, Tolkien, a professor of language and literature at Oxford University, was always intrigued by early English and the imaginative use of language. In his greatest story, the trilogy The Lord of the Rings (1954--56), Tolkien invented a language with vocabulary, grammar, syntax, even poetry of its own. Though readers have created various possible allegorical interpretations, Tolkien has said: "It is not about anything but itself. (Certainly it has no allegorical intentions, general, particular or topical, moral, religious or political.)" In The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962), Tolkien tells the story of the "master of wood, water, and hill," a jolly teller of tales and singer of songs, one of the multitude of characters in his romance, saga, epic, or fairy tales about his country of the Hobbits. Tolkien was also a formidable medieval scholar, as attested to by, among other works, Beowulf: The Monster and the Critics (1936) and his edition of Anciene Wisse:English Text of the Anciene Riwle. Hos latest work, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, was never before published. It was written while Tolkien was Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford during the 1920's and 1930's before The Lord of the Rings.
J.R.R. Tolkien nació el 3 de enero de 1892. Después de servir en la Primera Guerra Mundial, se embarcó en una distinguida carrera académica y fue reconocido como uno de los mejores filólogos del mundo. Es conocido principalmente por ser el creador de la Tierra Media y autor de las clásicas y extraordinarias obras de ficción El Silmarillion, El Hobbit y El Señor de los Anillos. Sus libros han sido traducidos a 70 lenguas y se han vendido muchos millones de ejemplares de ellos en todo el mundo. Falleció el 2 de septiembre de 1973, a la edad de 81 años.
