Stories tend to get out of hand– Tolkien

Reading Humphrey Carpenter’s wonderful J.R.R. Tolkien – A Biography.  The story of his early life and evolution of his stories is fascinating. Some quirky influences on Tolkien’s writing:

• The toddler Tolkien attacked by a terrifying tarantula in South Africa (1895)
• Tolkien’s teacher trained his dog to lick its lips with the command “smakka bagms”
• His fellowship of young writers which is broken by the Great War
• The inspiration of the Kalevala mythology of Finland
• A ‘nasty’ holiday on which he wrote a poem about a slimy cave creature named ‘Glip’
• His friendship with C.S.Lewis, on whom he based Treebeard’s ‘hrooming’ voice

Link to all the Lord of the Rings covers.

Tags: tolkien

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