Le Guin’s sci-fi anthropological record Always Coming Home. A comparable work of fiction is Ursula K. Because of this, there are few similar recent books, besides collections like Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology. The Silmarillion is structured as a collection of myth (such as the Poetic Edda and the Mabinogion) rather than a novel.

Túrin’s tragic fate contains echoes of the story of Kullervo in the Finnish Kalevala. The story of Beren and Lúthien has been compared both to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and the Middle English lay Sir Orfeo. The later stories of The Silmarillion were likely inspired by Germanic, Greek, Finnish, and Celtic myth. Consequently, the creation stories of The Silmarillion share many themes with the stories of the Christian Bible. Much of The Silmarillion’s theology aligns with Christian theology-Tolkien wrote in a 1954 letter that Ilúvatar is not a fictional deity but a fictional name for the Christian God. He admitted to drawing inspiration from his academic study of Beowulf (which likely contributes its sense of fate, doom, and decline to The Silmarillion) and his Christian faith. With The Silmarillion, Tolkien intended to create a specifically English mythology, and, in doing so, was influenced by other mythology. In addition to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien published influential scholarly writings during his academic career, including his lecture “Beowulf, the Monsters and the Critics” and his treatise “On Fairy-Stories.” After his death in 1973, his son Christopher, known as the first scholar of Middle-earth, organized and published his father’s unfinished works and other stories. After the war, Tolkien found employment with the New English Dictionary, Leeds University, and finally Oxford University, where he taught for 34 years. While recovering from trench fever in 1917, Tolkien began writing stories that would later be adapted into The Book of Lost Tales and The Silmarillion. The two reconnected when Tolkien turned 21, six months before the start of World War I, and were married in 1916 just before Tolkien left for France. In 1908, after the death of his mother, Tolkien met Edith Bratt, an older Protestant girl, whom Tolkien’s Catholic guardian later forbade him from contacting. By the age of four, he could read and write fluently, and he developed an interest in learning and inventing languages as he grew. He was born in South Africa and moved to the Birmingham countryside at the age of three.

Tolkien was an acclaimed academic, author, and linguist.

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