Claim: The Hobbit was written by an English artist.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien , -LRB- -LSB- ˈtɒlkiːn -RSB- Tolkien pronounced his surname -LSB- ˈtɒlkiːn -RSB- , see his phonetic transcription published on the illustration in The Return of the Shadow : The History of The Lord of the Rings , Part One . -LSB- Edited by -RSB- Christopher Tolkien . London : Unwin Hyman , -LSB- 25 August -RSB- 1988 . -LRB- The History of Middle-earth ; 6 -RRB- ISBN 0-04-440162-0 . In General American the surname is also pronounced -LSB- ˈtoʊlkiːn -RSB- . This pronunciation no doubt arose by analogy with such words as toll and polka , or because General American speakers realise -LSB- / ɒ / -RSB- as -LSB- -LSB- ɑ -RSB- -RSB- , while often hearing British -LSB- / ɒ / -RSB- as -LSB- -LSB- ɔ -RSB- -RSB- ; thus -LSB- -LSB- ɔ -RSB- -RSB- or General American -LSB- -LSB- oʊ -RSB- -RSB- become the closest possible approximation to the Received Pronunciation for many American speakers . Wells , John . 1990 . Longman pronunciation dictionary . Harlow : Longman , ISBN 0-582-05383-8 3 January 1892 -- 2 September 1973 -RRB- was an English writer , poet , philologist , and university professor who is best known as the author of the classic high-fantasy works The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings , and The Silmarillion .   He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College , Oxford , from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College , Oxford from 1945 to 1959 . He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis -- they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings . Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972 .   After Tolkien 's death , his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father 's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts , including The Silmarillion . These , together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , form a connected body of tales , poems , fictional histories , invented languages , and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and Middle-earth `` Middle-earth '' is derived via Middle English middel-erthe , middel-erd from middangeard , an Anglo-Saxon cognate of Old Norse -LSB- Midgard , Miðgarðr -RSB- , the land inhabited by humans in Norse mythology . within it . Between 1951 and 1955 , Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings .   While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien , the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre . This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the `` father '' of modern fantasy literature -- or , more precisely , of high fantasy . In 2008 , The Times ranked him sixth on a list of `` The 50 greatest British writers since 1945 '' . Forbes ranked him the 5th top-earning `` dead celebrity '' in 2009 .