Джон Рональд Руэл Толкин

'Bilbo baggins was a hobbit who lived in his hobbit-hole and never went for adventures until Gandalf the wizard and his dwarves persuaded him to go. He had a very exciting time fighting goblins and wargs...and returned home – rich!'  

When 10-year-old Rayner Unwin produced this report for his father, publisher Stanley Unwin in 1936, he had no idea that the manuscript he had recommended would go on to be a remarkable success. Neither did its author, J.R.R.Tolkien, Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, when, inexplicably, he jotted the famous opening sentence – 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit' – on a blank sheet while marking examination papers! Yet within a year of publication, The Hobbit had won the New York Herald Tribune prize for children's literature and was set to become a classic. The Lord of the Rings... Далее