J. R. R. Tolkien as the Father of Fantasy Genre: Most Successful Books

Fantasy is the fourth most popular genre of book, making around 590.2 million dollars as profit a year. People always has been seduced by the idea of escaping from the reality, imaging a different world where everything is possible. There are two writers that became famous writing fantasy books: J. R. R. Tolkien and George R. R. Martin. Although J. R. R. Tolkien was born 56 years after George R. R. Martin, today both exert a huge successes and influence.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, well known internationally as J. R. R. Tolkien, was born in 1892 in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, current South Africa. However, when he was 3 years old, after his father died, he moved to England with his mother and brother. Since he was a child, Tolkien was fascinated by linguistics. He studied English language and literature at Exeter College, Oxford, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours. He became a philologist and university professor Oxford University, having been an Anglo-Saxon professor, considered one of the leading subject matter experts. In addition to English, Tolkien knows about sixteen other languages, including Ancient Greek, Latin, Gothic and Anglo-Saxon. All these languages helped him to created other sixteen, which after will be used in our fantasy books. Tolkien died in 1973 from a bleeding ulcer and chest infection, when he was 81-year-old (Carpenter, 2000). Whereas George Raymond Richard Martin, well known internationally as George R. R. Martin, was born in 1948 in New Jersey, United States. Since he was a child, Martin loves reading and writing histories and dramas, that he usually sent his colleagues. He studied at Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School, and Journalism Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. His first official work, The Hero, was published in 1970, when he was just 20 years. After that, Martin wrote many fantasies, novels and comics books. He worked at CBS Television as a story editor, executive story consultant and Co-Supervising Producer. Belong his career he received many rewards, including 6 Locus Award, an annual set of literary awards by the science fiction and fantasy. Today, Martin is a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America and of Writers’ Guild of America, West (George R. R. Martin, n.d.). Even though, currently he is 71 years old, he still working as a writer.

The greatest success books of Tolkien are The hobbit, 1937, and Lord of the Rings, that initially should be just one book, but the publishers classified as too long, and Lately they divided the original book in three different parts becoming: “The Fellowship of the Ring: being the first part of The Lord of the Rings, 1954; The Two Towers: being the second part of The Lord of the Rings, 1954; The Return of the King: being the third part of The Lord of the Rings,1955”. (Books by J.R.R. Tolkien, n.d.). Together the four books have sold more than 250 million copies around the world. On the other hand, Martin became most well know for the series of books called A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of epic fantasy books, with until now is composed for 6 distinct books: A Game of Thrones, 1996; A Clash of Kings, 1998; A Storm of Swords, 2000; A Feast for Crows, 2005; A Dance with Dragons, 2011. Furthermore, the saga of A Song of Ice and Fire still not complete, there are more tow books to be released: The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. Until now, no one knows when the final books will be released and there is a lot of speculations around this subject. As a result, the six first books have sold 25 million copies worldwide. Even though, the difference between a number of copies of Tolkien’s and Martin’s greatest success books is a huge number, Martin has only 23 years since he published his first book of the series A Song of Ice and Fire, while Tolkien’s first book was published in 1954, 65 years ago.