September 21, 1937: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is published by George Allen & Unwin. It is the beginning of the Middle Earth saga of J.R.R. Tolkien.
John Ronald Ruel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa, not yet part of the British Empire. The family was living there because his father was running the local office of a British bank. At the age of 3, his mother took him and his baby brother Hilary back to England to visit her family, but his father died, and so the remnant of the family stayed in Birmingham, which is where the brothers grew up.
Ronald, as the family called him, developed interests in language and botany, both of which would be factors in his later writing of Middle Earth, as he developed languages for the various species and even told of how various trees mattered to the story. At age 19, he visited Switzerland, and its mountain landscape would inspire him.
He attended Oxford University, but his studies were interrupted by World War I. He later said that people who saw Nazi-like qualities in the antagonists of his stories missed the point: War, not any particular country, was the enemy, and it was the First World War, not the Second, that shaped him. Even his own commanders proved abhorrent: As he later wrote, "The most improper job of any man... is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity."
The Battle of the Somme began on July 1, 1916, which proved to be one of the deadliest days of the war. The battle dragged on and on through the 2nd half of the calendar year, but ended for Lieutenant Tolkien on November 8, when he was evacuated back to England due to trench fever. Having already lost some close friends before this, nearly his entire battalion would be wiped out after he was evacuated, and he dealt with survivor's guilt for the rest of his long life.
After the war, he taught at Oxford and worked as a translator. In 1931, he met another professor, C.S. Lewis, beginning a lifelong friendship. They were members of The Inklings, an informal literary society that met at The Eagle and Child pub off the Oxford campus. Lewis would venture into fantasy with his series The Chronicles of Narnia. He died on November 22, 1963, as did another noted British writer, Aldous Huxley. Neither death made headlines in America, though, as it was also the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Tolkien wrote a few books of poetry and a study of the myth of Beowulf, but hadn't started his own words of fantasy until 1932, when -- as he told to writer W.H. Auden in a 1955 letter -- he was marking School Certificate papers, and saw a blank piece of paper, and suddenly an idea came to him, and he wrote on the blank page, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." He hadn't yet decided what a hobbit was, or what it should look like, but there it was.
Someone once joked that we have no idea what works of Shakespeare we lost to circumstance, because he had an idea while walking down the street and rushed home and forgot it before he could write it down, or because he broke his quill in mid-sentence, got mad and gave up, suggesting that we could have had, "To be or... " and nothing else. If Tolkien had been interrupted before he could write the word "hobbit," the lives of millions of people might have been very different.
He set the story in an "ancient time between the age of Faerie and the dominion of men." In his stories, "hobbits," "elves" and "dwarves" were not only separate from each other, but, despite their basically humanoid appearance, separate from "men."
By 1936, he had shown the completed story to a few people, but hadn't tried to get it published. But he showed it to Susan Dagnall, who worked for George Allen & Unwin. She showed it to Stanley Unwin, who showed it to his 10-year-old son, who read it, and told his father he should publish it. The rest is... well, not history, but the history of fantasy.
The Hobbit follows the quest of home-loving Bilbo Baggins, the aforementioned hobbit, who is asked by a wizard named Gandalf to win a share of the treasure guarded by a dragon named Smaug. Bilbo's journey takes him from his light-hearted, rural surroundings into more sinister territory.
The story is told in the form of an episodic quest, and most chapters introduce a specific creature or type of creature of Tolkien's geography. Bilbo gains a new level of maturity, competence, and wisdom by accepting the disreputable, romantic, fey, and adventurous sides of his nature and applying his wits and common sense. The story reaches its climax in the Battle of Five Armies, where many of the characters and creatures from earlier chapters re-emerge to engage in conflict.
The novel was a success, and led to Tolkien working on more Middle Earth stories, for more mature readers. This would be led by the Lord of the Rings trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring was published on July 29, 1954; The Two Towers on November 11, 1954; and The Return of the King on October 20, 1955.
By the time Tolkien died on September 2, 1973, in Bournemouth of a bleeding ulcer at age 81, he was the biggest-selling fantasy writer of all time, and he remains so. In 1977, his son Christopher Tolkien, already a renowned author in his own right, completed his father's notes and published The Silmarillion, a guide to the story of Middle Earth.
Attempts to film Tolkien's work began almost immediately. Walt Disney, having done Fantasia in 1940, wanted to do an animated Lord of the Rings, but before he could approach Tolkien, his own people told him it would be too complicated, and too scary for children. Reluctantly, he agreed. A live-action version was planned in the early 1960s, and Peter Lorre had agreed to play Gollum. But Lorre died in 1964, and the project died with him. A 12-minute cartoon titled The Hobbit was made in 1967, but did nothing.
One of the more intriguing ideas was that The Beatles would try it. It seemed to make sense. After all, they had already made A Hard Day's Night and Help!, so they were no longer rookies in filmmaking. And there were 4 of them, and there were 4 hobbits in The Fellowship of the Ring: Bilbo's cousin Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck, and Merry's cousin Peregrin "Pippin" Took.
When the Beatles' friend, Scottish singer Donovan Leitch, suggested it to them, they liked the idea, but had other ideas about the casting. John Lennon wanted to play Gandalf, George Harrison wanted to play Frodo, then John suggested to George that they switch. Ringo Starr wanted to play Sam. Paul McCartney wanted to play Frodo, and said that John would have played Gollum, Ringo would be Sam, George would be Gandalf, Donovan would play Merry, and supermodel Twiggy would have been the female lead, Galadriel.
All these ideas ended up not mattering, because they couldn't find a director. David Lean, already with Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago under his belt, turned it down. Stanley Kubrick, who had already directed Spartacus, Lolita and Dr. Strangelove, liked the idea, but thought a live-action version was unfilmable. Michelangelo Antonioni, director of L'Avventura and Blow-up, was intrigued, but by the time his interest was taken back to The Beatles, they had broken up, although it hadn't been announced yet.
At this point, with the idea of casting The Beatles scrapped, John Boorman was approached. His best work was still ahead of him, but he was talked into the idea. But his ideas were surreal, and had a lot of sex in them, which the original story did not. He was dropped, but his already-present taste for fantasy was stoked, and he eventually took his ideas and made Excalibur, a very violent, very sexualized version of the King Arthur story.
An animated version of The Hobbit was done in 1977, with Orson Bean voicing Bilbo, directing legend John Hutson as Gandalf, Richard Boone of Have Gun -- Will Travel as Smaug, and British actor Brother Theodore as Gollum. This was followed in 1978 by Lord of the Rings, which included The Fellowship of the Ring and the 1st half of The Two Towers; and in 1980 by The Return of the King, which took up the story from there.
Bean again voiced Bilbo, and also Frodo. Huston again played Gandalf. Roddy McDowell played Sam. Theodore Bikel played the eponymous King Aragorn. Anthony Daniels, C-3PO in Star Wars, played Legolas. Cartoon veteran Paul Frees played several roles, including Elrond. And Don Messick, the voice of Scooby-Doo, provided several voices, including that of the villain Sauron. These cartoons introduced a new generation of kids to the books, but were not well-received by those who were already fans.
Finally, as the turn of the 21st Century approached, special effects had improved to the point where a live-action version would have been considerably easier to film. New Zealand director Peter Jackson made a LOTR trilogy from 2001 to 2003, and later a Hobbit trilogy from 2012 to 2014.
The cast included: Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Ian Holm as Bilbo, Elijah Wood as Frodo, Sean Astin as Sam, Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, Liv Tyler as Arwen, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Andy Serkis as Gollum, Christopher Lee as Saruman, and Sala Baker as Sauron. And Sean Bean (no relation to Orson) played Boromir, with the much-parodied monologue, which only appears in the film, not the book:
One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its Black Gates are guarded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly.
The films were nominated for Oscars, and The Return of the King actually won for Best Picture in 2004. Thus did the work of J.R.R. Tolkien achieve something that Lewis' Narnia tales, Star Trek, Star Wars, films based on DC Comics superheroes, films based on Marvel Comics superheroes, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Zorro, James Bond, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter never have -- so far. (Rocky Balboa has, but those others haven't.)
In a 2011 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played Gandalf, against "Nice" Peter Shukoff as another fictional wizard, Albus Dumbledore of the Harry Potter books and films. In a 2016 episode, Peter played Tolkien, against Lloyd as Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin, who is often compared in terms to Tolkien of writing style.
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September 21, 1937 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Cubs, 7-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Mel Ott went 2-for-5 with an RBI.
* The Brooklyn Dodgers were swept by the St. Louis Cardinals in a doubleheader at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, 8-5 and 6-3.
* A doubleheader was split at Fenway Park in Boston. The Boston Red Sox won the opener, 12-7, including 10 runs in the 5th inning. Lefty Grove was the winning pitcher. The Detroit Tigers won the nightcap, 4-1. Over the 2 games, Jimmie Foxx went 3-for-9 with an RBI; while Over the 2 games, Hank Greenberg went 2-for-8 with 3 walks, 2 home runs (both in the 1st game) and 5 RBIs.
* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-4 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Wally Moses won it with a home run in the bottom of the 11th inning.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 6-3 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Boston Bees, 9-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. These was during the 5-year name change for the once-and-future Boston Braves.
* A doubleheader was split at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Reds won the 1st game, 6-3. The Philadelphia Phillies won the 2nd game, 10-1.
* And the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Browns were rained out at Yankee Stadium. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Yankees swept, 4-1 and 11-0. Monte Pearson went the distance for the win in the 1st game, with Tony Lazzeri supporting him with a home run. Kemp Wicker pitched a 7-hit shutout in the 2nd game, backed by a home run from Jake Powell. On the day, Lou Gehrig went 2-for-7 with 2 walks and an RBI, and Joe DiMaggio went 0-for-6, but with 3 walks.
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