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Tolkien set his works in an imaginary realm called Middle-earth, peopling it with different "races": hobbits, elves, dwarves, wizards, orcs (goblins), and humans. Each of these races has distinct physical and moral traits. For instance, hobbits are short in stature and love a life of simple comforts. They represent the side of Tolkien's nature that loved tobacco, beer, and companionship. Elves are tall and slim, and with their melodious language and their beauty they represent Tolkien's religious and aesthetic ideals. Dwarves are a race of miners, small but powerfully built, who prize the gold and gems they dig from the earth. Often gruff and sometimes greedy, dwarves are also fiercely loyal to their friends and kinfolk. Wizards are gaunt and possess great magical powers; some are good and others are evil. Orcs are hideous monsters who represent pure evil. Men are the youngest race in Middle-earth, and they embody the potential for courage and cowardice, friendship and betrayal, generosity and selfishnessn short, the complexities of good and ill that Tolkien saw in modern people.

Tolkien modeled the central hobbit characters, Bilbo Baggins and his nephew Frodo, after British enlisted men he had known in World War I (1914-1918). Baggins and Frodo loathe danger and discomfort, but find themselves called to high heroic action: Bilbo in the destruction of a dragon, and Frodo in battling Sauron, the demonic being who desires control of all Middle-earth.

The Hobbit, Tolkien's first successful work of fiction, developed from stories told to Tolkien's children. It is notable for the completeness (both linguistically and geographically) of its setting. The story centers on the small and timid Bilbo Baggins, who is lured into a treasure-hunting adventure and finds a ring that makes its wearer invisible. The ring later passes to his nephew Frodo and becomes the central symbol in Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, a work of fantasy intended primarily for adults. This work, which describes the quest of Frodo to destroy the evil ring of power, was published in three parts: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. The Lord of the Rings most fully expresses Tolkien's ideals of self-sacrifice and love of both the land and artistic creation. With these works Tolkien established himself as a master of fantasy, a genre he helped resurrect as a serious form of modern literature.

Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. He showed early promise as a linguist, inventing his own alphabets and languages, and won a scholarship to Oxford University. At Oxford he studied Old and Middle English and Old Norse and invented two "elvish" languages. Soon after graduating in 1915, Tolkien enlisted in the British army, but after four months in the World War I trenches, he developed trench fever and was sent home in 1916 for a lengthy recuperation. War, he later said, deepened and sobered his imagination and stimulated his love of fantasy. While hospitalized in 1917 he began The Silmarillion, the first expression of his desire to create his own world, with its own peoples, languages, and history. The Silmarillion, which remained unpublished until 1977, presents the mythological beginnings of Middle-earth.

Tolkien continued his scholarly work while writing fantasies. From 1920 to 1925 he taught at the University of Leeds, and in 1925 he became professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. From 1945 to 1959 he served as Merton Professor of English at Oxford. As a scholar Tolkien theorized about the meaning of fantasy and argued for the importance of such medieval fantasies as Beowulf and the Arthurian legend Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He also translated or edited editions of these works. In the essays "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936) and "On Fairy-Stories" (1939), Tolkien claimed that the mythological imagination, which invents fantasy realms and beings, enriches the spirit and touches on basic truths in a manner akin to religion.

The Silmarillion was edited by Tolkien's son Christopher and published after the author's death. Other Tolkien works edited by Christopher Tolkien and published posthumously include Unfinished Tales (1980) and The Return of the Shadow (1989), which contains early versions of The Lord of the Rings.

The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of three motion pictures based on Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings, was released in 2001. The second movie, The Two Towers, appeared in 2002, and a third film, The Return of the King, was scheduled for release in December 2003.