Lord of the Rings
Many experts consider the novel Lord of the Rings to be a classic piece of literature.  I will attempt to find evidence supporting this classification.
Lots of novels are created each year, and presumably the authors of most of them want to write something classic but end up failing to achieve this objective. The books are not  nominated for any prizes, few copies are sold, book clubs don’t bother discussing them, teachers don’t make students read them, they are not adapted into movies, and they are soon forgotten and rarely reprinted. As well, there are the pleasantly enjoyable novels created by pragmatic authors whose only goal is to tell a story that appeals to a reader who has time to fill and money to spend on the book. No deep thought required or expected, and no experts are ever likely to call it a classic and add it to the curriculum at any school.

So how did J.R.R. Tolkien manage to avoid this type of novel? Did he really set out to tell a simple story about young hobbits looking for adventure, or did he have some deeper meaning in mind? Is Lord of the Rings considered a classic by readers of both genders or just by boys? What makes it appealing now, some 5 decades after it was published? How many awards did it win, and how universal was the critical praise for it? How much publicity did the author push for when it was released? Did he have to explain its importance himself, or was the quality of the book evident on its own? Would I read it for basic entertainment while waiting for a bus, or am I supposed to learn something from it that would change my outlook on life? Is it supposed to be an accurate reflection of normal human behavior in response to events, or wishful thinking that, instead of what would happen in the real world, the plot would unfold the way the fictional characters affect it. Are the good guys and the bad guys clearly define? Does the story document the struggle between good and evil, or does one side always win easily?
I need to find a definition of a classic novel, so turning to Wikipedia, I learn that the definition of a novel comprises the following terms.

According to official definitions of novels, we expect the author to create and describe in detail an entirely fictional setting. This has been achieved. Middle Earth is described at length, so that the reader can picture the landscape looking similar too, yet not the same as, the real world. Middle Earth is also populated with enough characters to set it apart from any people none of the characters or locations are related to any events in history that the reader would be able to identify with. For example, we have no orcs running around killing people and kidnapping hobbits. Middle earth is also populated by elves and dwarves, none of which exist in the real world
There is a letter JRR Tolkien wrote to a fellow author Carole Batten-Phelps  in which he explains that he wrote LOTR for his own pleasure, but he acknowledges that he was trying to create a major work. For someone who grew up in relative poverty, and whose only other source of income was as a professor, it seems more likely than not that he intended to make a profit from publishing his novels.




The author was known to be against modern industrial and scientific advances that developed during his lifetime. Instead of writing science fiction that looked into the future with these new inventions, he created a world looking back to a simpler and quieter time.

As LOTR grew in popularity, many readers and critics tried to say that the book was a reflection or a commentary on the England in the middle of the 20th century, with great wars, evil dictators, and the spread of communism. The author publicly denounced these interpretations, so perhaps he really did mean to stick with a story about adventure in a world existing entirely in his own imagination. The fact that he had the names of minor characters inscribed on his tombstone, as if he himself was that character, is another indication that he was more interested in his fictional world than anything going on in the real world. LOTR is a lengthy story, and introduces a large number of characters. Most characters fall into either good or evil, and the whole premise of the plot is that the good guys are trying to overcome the bad guys and get rid of the ring to make the world a nicer place.

The hobbits selected to destroy the ring were chosen because they would be impervious to the effects of the ring.   Should we all try to be like Frodo – was he strong-willed and not interested in gaining power for himself. Is this a common trait in humans, is it even possible to be like this, and is it a good thing if we all were indifferent to power? I don’t think a civilized society could function like this – it certainly would not advance, but then again, Tolkien didn’t want the world to advance much. Probably this is why it took until the turbulent 1960s for people to take much notice of LOTR and start to think so highly of it,Some people would say LOTR is a classic because of its length and amount of detailed description of the settings and the languages. However, the author had already invested many years effort into creating these things. He’d written other books set in the same Middle Earth.