Module 2 Fantasy Literature【美文阅读】 The Lord of the Rings, one of the best sellers in the new millennium(一千年；千年期), was made up of three parts—The Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Millions of people have read it in over 25 languages, but fewer know about the author and the history of composition of the creative masterwork(极品，名著)．John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in South Africa in 1892. His parents died when he was a child. Living in England with his aunt, Tolkien and his cousins made up play languages, a hobby that led to Tolkien's becoming skilled in Welsh, Greek, Gothic, Old Norse and AngloSaxon.After graduating from Oxford, Tolkien served in World War Ⅰ. In 1917, while recovering from trench fever, he began composing the mythology(神话学；神话) for The Rings. As a professor of AngloSaxon in 1930s at Oxford, Tolkien was part of an informal discussion group called the Inklings, which included several writers. The group was soon listening to chapters of Tolkien's imaginative(富于想象力的，运用想象力) work The Hobbit.Hobbit was a name Tolkien created for a local people that could be described as halfsized members of the English rural class. Hobbits live in hillside holes. One of them, Bilbo Baggins, looks for treasures with a group of dwarves. On the way, he meets the twisted(反常的，变态的), pitiful creature Gollum, from whom he sees a golden ring that makes the holder invisible.One of Tolkien's students persuaded her employer, publisher Allen & Unwin, to look at a draft. The chairman of the firm, Stanley Unwin, thought that the best judge for a children's book would be his tenyearold son. The boy earned a shilling for reporting back that the...
