Lin Carter's study was intended to serve as an introduction to Tolkien for those unfamiliar with his work. His introduction briefly reviews the publishing phenomenon of
The Lord of the Rings and its burgeoning popularity in the wake of the first paperback editions in the 1960s, after which he devotes three chapters to a short biography of the author through the late 1960s, including an account of how
The Lord of the Rings was written. Four chapters follow explaining Tolkien's invented
Middle-earth and summarizing the stories of
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings. Carter next turns to the question of what the works
are. The then-current vogue for
realistic fiction provided critics with few tools for evaluating an out-and-out
fantasy on its own terms, and attempts were rife to deconstruct it as a
satire or
allegory. Carter debunks these efforts, citing Tolkien's essay "
On Fairy-Stories" on the functions and purposes of fantasy. Carter then contextualizes Tolkien's works by broadly sketching the history of written fantasy from its earliest appearance in the
epic poetry of the ancient world through the heroic poetry of the Dark Ages and the prose romances of the medieval era, down to the
fairy tales,
ghost stories and
gothic novels of the modern era and the rediscovery of the genre by writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, prior to and contemporary with Tolkien. The
origins of the modern genre are traced to the writings of
William Morris,
Lord Dunsany and
E. R. Eddison, and followed through the works of authors they influenced, including
H. P. Lovecraft,
Fletcher Pratt,
L. Sprague de Camp, and
Mervyn Peake. Carter next highlights some of Tolkien's particular debts to his predecessors, early and modern, tracing the motifs and names he utilizes to their beginnings in
Norse mythology, and highlighting other echoes in his work from legend and history. A "Postscript" features
Tolkien's influence on contemporary fantasy, which was evident in the 1960s, primarily in children's books by
Carol Kendall,
Alan Garner, and
Lloyd Alexander. An updated 2003 edition includes material on
Peter Jackson's
film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings in the introduction, covers the story of
The Silmarillion in the chapter "Tolkien Today", and expands the postscript "After Tolkien" on recent fantasy writers. == Publication history ==