J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is the author of several books which practically started the genre of high fantasy in the 20th century. While Tolkien lifted his material heavily from Germanic (particularly Nordic and Anglo-Saxon), Celtic and Finnish folklore, the stereotypes that he established last to this day, especially in fantasy gaming. It is probable that, without his works, the hobbies of roleplaying and fantasy gaming would not exist today as they do, along with a shitload of bad fantasy novels written by talentless hacks trying to emulate his works (admittedly they would have just ripped off someone else if Tolkien did not exist).
The most well-known works by Tolkien include:
- The Hobbit
- The Lord of the Rings
- The Silmarilion (published after his death by his son)
One of the main themes of The Lord of The Rings, and Tolkien's miscellaneous writings, is industry vs. nature, with industrialists being portrayed as a bunch of greedy pricks (eg Saruman) and rural types being portrayed as decent, "salt-of-the-Earth" people (eg Samwise Gamgee). He was a giant romantic (see Beren and Luthien and how he met his wife), cool as hell, awesome and that was pretty much the way most people were back then.