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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on Jannuary, the 3rd 1892 in Bloemfontein/Southafrica. He lived in England since 1895 and visited a primary school. After his A-Level he studied germain philologie. He was very interrestet in the german and celtic Legends and often refered to them in his lectures. In 1917 he began to write his large cycles about Middle-Earth. He began The Lord of the Rings soon after the completion of The Hobbit and before its publication. The Lord of the Rings was a very large project and it was a long work for Tolkien. He wrote the book in the time of 1936 to 1949. There was a great delay in the years after the outbrake of war in 1939. And after the completion there was another delay for it had to be typed and re-typed by Tolkien himself. Actually it was read by many persons until it was finally printed.
Tolkien does not resemble the real World War II for his War of the Ring, because, if he had done so, the Ring had been brought to Minas Tirith and used against Sauron. He would have been enslaved and not destroyed and Barad-dûr would have been occupied. Saruman would have found in Mordor enough knowledge in Ring-lore and before long he would have made his own Masterring. So the war would have never ended because of the selfishness of both sides.
For the inner meaning, according to Tolkien himself, there was none! The book is neither allegorical nor topical. Its main theme was only the Ring as a link between it and The Hobbit. The chapter 'The Shadow of the Past' was written long before the conflict of 1939 and the book would have followed the same scheme as it did, even though the war would have been averted.
Finally the first part of the book was published in 1954. In this version there were many printer's errors and compositor's mistakes. Many of Tolkien's proper names had been changed (and that was really against Tolkien's sake). So in the following editions the mistakes had been corrected. The second part was published in November of the same year and Tolkien announced that there would be an index of names and strange words in the third volume. This third and last part was finally published in 1955 and with this the whole Lord of the Rings was finished. In the later editions there were only some corrections of Tolkien for there were still some minor mistakes (which were actually not interesting for any reader at all). Tolkien died on September, the 2nd of 1973 in Bornemouth and until this date many mistakes have not been fixed in his book.
But nevertheless his book was one of the best selling fantasy novels which have ever been published.
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