An early orphan, loving husband and father, J. R. R. Tolkien, who died in 1973, was a novelist, poet, essayist, philologist, professor of Old English and English literature at Oxford University. Underneath his quiet, pipe-smoking grandfatherly exterior, he displayed an abundance of creativity. He imagined an entire world, the fabulous Middle-earth of England before the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons, where a myriad of peoples - hobbits, elves, orcs and magicians - live side by side in epic adventures. The novelist drew his inspiration from certain places - the verdant Midlands and the Swiss Alps in particular - from certain important events in his life, from the great Scandinavian and European myths and from his love of ancient languages.