September 21, 1937: J.R.R. Tolkien Publishes "The Hobbit"

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.

*

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.

July 1, 1916: The Battle of the Somme

British "Tommies" emerging from the trenches

and "going over the top"

July 1, 1916: The Battle of the Somme breaks out, along the River Somme, outside Ovillers-la-Boisselle, 100 miles north of Paris. It becomes the 2nd-longest battle of World War I, behind the Battle of Verdun -- which started earlier in the year, and finished after the Somme -- and is the war's largest battle in terms of manpower.

On one side: Imperial Germany, with 1 million men, commanded by Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria. On the other side: France, defending their homeland with 1.3 million men, commanded by Marshal Ferdinand Foch; and Britain, assisting their ally with 1.2 million men, commanded by General Douglas Haig.

Douglas Haig

The 1st day at the Somme was one of the few days on which the Allies made significant progress in World War I. But it was also one of the bloodiest: In one day, the British lost 19,240 men. To put that in perspective: America lost its mind when nearly 60,000 men were lost in the 8 years of the Vietnam War. The British lost nearly 20,000 men in one day, the worst day in terms of losses that their army has ever had, since there has been a nation of England to keep records. The Germans lost 12,000. The French, 1,590.

But that battle continued. In September, the British used tanks in battle for the 1st time. It was also one of the earliest battles in which air power was used. Hostilities finally ceased on November 18, at which point the British and French had gained... 6 miles.

Among the British soldiers -- known as "Tommies," derived from "Tommy Atkins," a long-standing name for them, not from "Thompson submachine guns," as the term "tommy-guns" was -- was Lieutenant John Ronald Ruel Tolkien, later the author of the Lord of the Rings books. He arrived early in July, and suffered all the horrors of the trenches, including lice, which led to trench fever, which led to him being evacuated in early November. After that, everyone in his platoon was killed in action. People who thought his books were allegories for World War II were way off: They were allegories for World War I.

J.R.R. Tolkien, 1916

When the battle was over, the Germans claimed losses of 440,000 men, plus 73,000 prisoners of war; the French, 200,000 dead; the British, 420,000. Add it up: 1,060,000 soldiers killed. That's right: One battle, over one million men dead. And for what? Six miles.

It was a "Pyrrhic victory." The phrase originates from a quote from Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose triumph against the Romans in the Battle of Asculum, in what is now Southern Italy, in 279 BC destroyed much of his forces, forcing the end of his campaign. According to legend, he said, "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined." The more common translation is, "Another such victory, and I am undone."

Haig was promoted to Field Marshal in 1917, given the title The Earl Haig in 1919, and lived until 1928. His grandson is Alexander, the 3rd Earl Haig. Despite the name and the shared profession, former U.S. Army General and Secretary of State Alexander Haig was not closely related.

For many years thereafter, the 1st Earl Haig was considered one of the most effective commanders of the war. But, in the words of the Canadian War Museum, "His epic but costly offensives at the Somme (1916) and Passchendaele (1917) have become nearly synonymous with the carnage and futility of First World War battles."

Marshal Foch became France's greatest military hero of the modern era, and accepted the German surrender on November 11, 1918. He lived until 1929.

Ferdinand Foch

With the Bavarian monarchy, as well as the larger German one, abolished by the Weimar Republic, Crown Prince Rupprecht tried and failed to establish a constitutional monarchy for Bavaria. The Nazis never asked him to be a part of their movement. He fled to Italy, then to Hungary, and was captured by the Nazis, and held at the Dachau concentration camp (which, at the absolute least, was in Bavaria). The postwar American occupation allowed him to return home, and he lived until 1955.

*

July 1, 1916 was a Saturday. Actress Olivia de Havilland was born on this day. And a series of shark attacks along the Jersey Shore began. I have a separate entry for this event.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-4 at Shibe Park (later renamed Connie Mack Stadium) in Philadelphia. Les Nunamaker doubled home the winning run in the top of the 9th inning.

* The New York Giants lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-2 at the Polo Grounds. Al Demaree went the distance for the Phils, allowing only 5 hits, 3 of them to Dave Robertson. He appears not to have been related to the later Yankee pitcher David Robertson.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers were swept in a doubleheader by the Boston Braves, 7-4 and 2-0 at Braves Field in Boston. Pat Ragan pitched a 2-hit shutout in the 2n game, outpitching future Hall-of-Famer Rube Marquard. The Dodgers -- or, more accurately, the Brooklyn Robins, as they were known from 1914 to 1931, as Wilbert Robinson was their manager -- won the National League Pennant, anyway.

* The Washington Senators beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-2 at American League Park (later renamed Griffith Stadium) in Washington. Walter Johnson pitched the last 2 innings for the Senators, and got the save, not that anyone knew what a "save" was at the time. Babe Ruth started for the Red Sox, pitched 3 1/3rd innings, and got the loss. He had no official at-bats, but had an RBI on a sacrifice fly. The Red Sox went on to beat the Dodgers/Robins in the World Series.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the St. Louis Browns, 5-4 at League Park in Cleveland. The game went 11 innings, although I can't find how the winning run was scored. Stan Coveleski was the winning pitcher, Eddie Plank the losing pitcher. Neither started the game. Both made the Baseball Hall of Fame. Tris Speaker went 2-for-3 with 2 walks. George Sisler went 1-for-4.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 2-1 at Redland Field (later renamed Crosley Field) in Cincinnati. Honus Wagner hit a home run.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Eddie Collins went 3-for-4 with an RBI. Shoeless Joe Jackson went 1-for-3 with an RBI. Ty Cobb went 1-for-4.

* And a doubleheader between arch-rivals was played at Robison Field in St. Louis. The Chicago Cubs won the opener, 9-2. The St. Louis Cardinals won the nightcap, 4-3. This was another game that went 11 innings, without Baseball-Reference or Retrosheet having a record of how the winning run was scored.

February 2, 1942: C.S. Lewis Publishes "The Screwtape Letters"

February 2, 1942: C.S. Lewis publishes The Screwtape Letters, playing "Devil's advocate" -- more literally than most authors ever do.

Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He taught at Oxford University, where he became close friends with his colleague J.R.R. Tolkien, to whom The Screwtape Letters was dedicated. In 1937, Tolkein published The Hobbit, establishing himself as a prominent fantasy writer, and would write sequels in the 1950s, which became the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Tolkien was a Catholic. Lewis had been raised in largely-Catholic, but Protestant-controlled, Ireland as an atheist, but Tolkien's influence led him to Christianity. Except it was to the Protestant Church of England, so, from a certain point of view, Tolkien's efforts backfired somewhat.

Lewis' writings would be heavy with Christian imagery, including his own 1950s fantasy stories that would be collected under the title The Chronicles of Narnia. But before writing those, he wrote The Screwtape Letters.

The book consists of 31 letters by Screwtape, a senior demon, to his nephew, Wormwood, whose job it is to attain for Hell the soul of a British man identified in the text only as "The Patient." In these letters, Screwtape gives his opinions -- apparently, the official positions of Hell on these things -- of Christianity, the Bible, and God Himself. As employees of the Devil, whom Screwtape calls "Our Father Below," it seems neither uncle nor nephew understands how God can love humans.

In the 3rd letter, Screwtape reacts poorly to Wormwood having told him that The Patient has accepted Christ as his Savior. He also doesn't like Wormwood's ideas of how to tempt the man, telling his nephew, "the safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

In this telling of religion, for demons, human souls are food, as Screwtape explains in the 6th letter: "We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons." During the course of the letters, World War II breaks out, and Wormwood is delighted. Screwtape also is, except that the possibility that The Patient could be killed as a result means that, for the moment, he's headed up, not down, and warns Wormwood that he must provide food, or he will, himself, become food.

In the 31st and last letter, the reader learns that The Patient has been killed in the London Blitz, and, from Screwtape's perspective, The Patient wins, and God wins; but the demons also win, since they're about to get a feast. The loser is the feast: Wormwood.

C.S. Lewis died on the same day as another renowned British writer, Aldous Huxley. Hardly anybody noticed, because that day was November 22, 1963, the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Tolkien lived another 10 years. Tributes and parodies to Screwtape have abounded, with such titles as From One Devil to Another, The Devil's Inbox, and E-mails from Hell.

*

February 2, 1942 was a Monday. This was also the day the film King’s Row premiered. It's often regarded as Ronald Reagan's finest film role. His character loses his legs in an accident halfway through, and his reaction became the title of Reagan's 1st memoir: Where's the Rest of Me?

He was not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, which went to James Cagney for Yankee Doodle Dandy. Maybe if Reagan had gotten that Oscar, would have gotten so many big roles, he never would've gone into politics.

Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And no NHL games were scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.