— Ch. 1 · Childhood Adventure Influences —
Tolkien's modern sources.
~6 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
J. R. R. Tolkien stated that he preferred the lighter contemporary novels of his youth, specifically citing John Buchan as a favorite author during his formative years. In 1966, when interviewed about his literary tastes, the only book Tolkien named as a personal favorite was H. Rider Haggard's 1887 adventure novel She: A History of Adventure. He described how this story interested him as a boy just as much as any other influence, comparing it to the Greek shard of Amyntas which acted as a machine to set everything in motion. Scholars have noted direct resonances between Tolkien's later works and the mythopoeic adventure romance found in Haggard's novels. One specific parallel exists between the monstrous Gollum and the evil ancient hag Gagool from Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines. Tolkien also wrote of being impressed by Samuel Rutherford Crockett's 1899 historical fantasy The Black Douglas while growing up. He explicitly used the fight with werewolves from that book for the battle against wargs in The Fellowship of the Ring. Jared Lobdell proposes that The Lord of the Rings functions as an adventure story written in the Edwardian mode, supported by multiple parallels to these early influences.
Science Fiction Parallels
H. G. Wells's description of the subterranean Morlocks in his 1895 science fiction novel The Time Machine appears suggestive of the character Gollum. Tolkien read and made use of modern fantasy such as George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin during his development of Middle-earth. Edward Wyke-Smith's Marvellous Land of Snergs featured table-high title characters that influenced the incidents, themes, and depiction of hobbits in Tolkien's work. Books by Tolkien's fellow-Inkling Owen Barfield contributed significantly to his world-view of decline and fall, particularly through the text Poetic Diction published in 1928. Parallels between The Hobbit and Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth include a hidden runic message and a celestial alignment that direct adventurers to their goals. A specific instance involves the runic cryptogram found in Verne's 1864 novel which may have influenced Tolkien's Book of Mazarbul. Tolkien acknowledged MacDonald's 1858 fantasy Phantastes as a source in a letter dated the 26th of October 1958. He wrote that MacDonald's sentient trees had perhaps some remote influence on his tree-giant Ents.