A comprehensive, authoritative, in depth and entertaining biography of one of the greatest and most influential fantasy authors in modern time, J. R. R. Tolkien. In this informed an entertaining account, renowned biographer Michael White delves into the little-known life of one of the most treasured and enduring authors of our time, J. R. R. Tolkien. In absorbing and revealing detail, White describes Tolkien's life — from his childhood years and the tragic early death of his parents; his burgeoning romance with Edith Brett; fighting on the front lines in WWI; his many years as an Oxford academic, where the idea of the Hobbit struck him while marking a term paper; to his friendship with C. S. Lewis and the founding of the group "The Inklings"; and why The Lord of the Rings became the most influential book in the late sixties counter-culture, one of the most respected and most-read trilogies ever written, and the center of a major film phenomenon. With 16 pages of black and white photos. Author Biography: Michael White has been a science editor of British GQ, a columnist for the Sunday Express in London and, in a previous incarnation, he was a member of the Thompson Twins (1982). Between 1984 and 1991 he was a science lecturer at d'Overbroeck's College in Oxford before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of more than twenty books.