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There’s more to J. R. R. Tolkien than wizards and hobbits. The author of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” was also an Oxford University professor specializing in languages like Old Norse and Old English. “Beowulf” was an early love, and a kind of Rosetta Stone to his creative work. His study of the poem, which he called “this greatest of the surviving works of ancient English poetic art,” informed his thinking about myth and language.

So much for that fellowship of the ring. Viggo Mortensen took a shot at Peter Jackson's dependence on visual effects in the "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy films, which are widely considered to have launched the actor's career to a higher level. In a frank interview with London's The Telegraph, the 55-year-old star of the upcoming "Two Faces of January" gave a thumbs-down to every J.R.R. Tolkien adaptation his former director has made since the first installment, 2001's "The Fellowship of the Ring."

It is being rumored that the evil Sauron will return and battle the White Council in The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

In a recent interview, Richard Armitage revealed that he was quite emotional about the completion of the trilogy. The 42-year-old actor spoke with BANG Showbiz about finally wrapping the trilogy and how now that the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogy was completed, he was very moved. "It will be 15 years of Peter Jackson's work, there'll be six movies to watch, but it could be the final time. There's something moving about that," he said.

Now this is precious. $6.2 billion and counting. That's how much films based on J. R. R. Tolkien's books have made in all at the box office so far. And there's still one part of The Hobbit trilogy to come. The Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) and The Hobbit are also on the list of Top 10 best selling books of all time - LOTR at No. 2 with 150 million copies sold. The Hobbit is No. 6 with 100 million copies sold.

Hit the jump to check out The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug character designs

The harrowing battle scenes and heartache in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy masterpiece The Lord Of The Rings were inspired by the author’s own First World War nightmare and the death of close friends from Birmingham.

Peter Jackson has made some remarkable movies. There’s no denying that his sprawling Lord of the Rings trilogy was the very definition of epic—filled with massive battles, touching moments, and beautiful cinematography, not to mention a lovely score.

2014 birthday toast On the 3rd January 1892 JRR Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. To celebrate this event, on this day each year Tolkien fans around the world were invited to raise a glass and toast the birthday of this much loved author 21:00 (9 pm) your local time. The toast is "The Professor". For those unfamiliar with British toast-drinking ceremonies: To make the Birthday Toast, you stand, raise a glass of your choice of drink (not necessarily alcoholic), and say the words 'The Professor' before taking a sip (or swig, if that's more appropriate for your drink)....

Since rumors began to spread that a startup called Palantir helped to kill Osama bin Laden, Alex Karp hasn’t had much time to himself. On one sun-baked July morning in Silicon Valley Palantir’s lean 45-year-old chief executive, with a top-heavy mop of frazzled hair, hikes the grassy hills around Stanford University’s massive satellite antennae known as the Dish, a favorite meditative pastime. But his solitude is disturbed somewhat by “Mike,” an ex-Marine–silent, 6 foot 1, 270 pounds of mostly pectoral muscle–who trails him everywhere he goes. Even on the suburban streets of Palo Alto, steps from Palantir’s headquarters, the bodyguard...

Pretty much everyone knows that JRR Tolkien was the pre-eminent fantasy writer of the past century, if not all time. His writing contains uniquely invented languages, epic back stories, and creatures that could only have proceeded from his imagination. Far from the nihilistic and often crude work of the so-called “American Tolkien” George R.R. Martin of “Game of Thrones” fame, Tolkien’s work was full of beauty, whimsy and hidden truth. What most people probably don’t know is that the Nazis were a pretty big fan of Tolkien, too. The Nazis were (as historian Heather Pringle lays out brilliantly in...

What can literary fiction teach us about recent revelations that the National Security Agency has aggressively been gathering massive amounts of data on American citizens? The novel one usually turns to, of course, is George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, with its terrifying vision of the Thought Police. Even President Obama, in response to questions about the NSA, has been forced to deny that the government has engaged in “Big Brother” tactics. Orwell’s book, however, isn’t the most compelling or accurate literary prediction of modern surveillance. That award goes to a less obvious title: J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s most...

With the end of the third season of Game of Thrones in sight (June 9th), a global audience of over 5 million is debating whether or not George R.R. Martin is the rightful “American Tolkien.” I argue that while The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones have striking similarities, Martin is actually pioneering a distinct genre—a new kind of fantasy novel informed by historical fiction and politics. Martin admits that he was influenced a great deal by Tolkien, and mirrored the structure of his novels off of Tolkien’s work: “Tolkien begins his story in the Shire with one...

In what was once the housekeeper's office of a Tudor mansion in Hampshire, a very odd golden ring glitters on a revolving stand in a tall perspex column. In chapter five of The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins finds a ring in the gloom of Gollum's cave. Not just any ring. "One very beautiful thing, very beautiful, very wonderful. He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring." A new exhibition opening today at The Vyne, now owned by the National Trust, raises the intriguing possibility that the Roman ring in the case, and the ring of power in JRR Tolkien's...

Travel along, if you dare, with Bilbo Baggins in “The Hobbit” — either in J.R.R.Tolkien’s beloved 1937 novel, or through the first installment of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy based on the book, which opens in theaters on Friday (Dec. 14). If you do, you will, essentially, be traveling in a world constructed on Christian principles, says Devin Brown, a professor of English at Asbury University, a Christian liberal arts college near Lexington, Ky. ...

The new film “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (opening Dec. 14) has got action and adventure galore, just like “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy that preceded it. But the director and actors who worked on the movie are well aware of the deeper themes that lie at the heart of the work of J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), who authored all the original books, published between 1937 and 1955. At a recent press conference about the film in New York City, Richard Armitage, who portrays the Dwarf warrior Thorin Oakenshield, said, “One of the things I find when I look...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- There’s only one real wizard in Middle Earth - and it’s director Peter Jackson. The auteur from Down Under unveiled “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” - the first installment of his prequel trilogy to his “Lord of the Rings” series - in his native New Zealand Wednesday. It was an eye-popping night, from the celebrity-filled red carpet to, more important, the action on screen. Based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 children’s tale which set the stage for the author’s much darker and heavier later books, Jackson’s “The Hobbit” harkens back to a more innocent time when men...

One of the most consistently underappreciated elements of “The Hobbit” is Tolkien’s use of poetry and song throughout the book. Most readers skim over the poems or even skip them outright, but they miss out on some of Tolkien’s most thoughtful and compelling literary moments. The songs in “The Hobbit” are not merely verses embedded in the story; they are poems carefully designed to capture the voices and illustrate the attitudes of their singers. The simple chant of the goblins when they first capture Bilbo and the dwarves, for instance, gives readers a stark insight into the goblin outlook on...

Peter Jackson formally announced this afternoon that his take on “The Hobbit” — originally envisioned as a two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s tale — will be a trilogy. The Oscar-winning filmmaker — who, as Smeagol scholars are well aware, directed the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy to much critical acclaim and financial success — had hinted about a third “Hobbit” during a recent appearance at Comic-Con. But today’s statement officially confirms that a third, not-yet-titled movie will follow “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and ”The Hobbit: There and Back Again.” Part three of the Bilbo Baggins saga is slated for...

On the 3rd January 1892 JRR Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. To celebrate this event, on this day each year Tolkien fans around the world are invited to raise a glass and toast the birthday of this much loved author. The toast is "The Professor". For those unfamiliar with British toast-drinking ceremonies: To make the Birthday Toast, you stand, raise a glass of your choice of drink (not necessarily alcoholic), and say the words 'The Professor' before taking a sip (or swig, if that's more appropriate for your drink). Sit and enjoy the rest of your drink.