It all began decades before any ring ever appeared. J.R.R. Tolkien, a literature professor at Oxford, had for years been building — almost as a private hobby — a mythology of his own: invented languages, maps, ancient legends, an entire world he called Middle-earth. It was only after the unexpected success of The Hobbit, in 1937, that his publisher asked for a sequel — and Tolkien, reluctant at first, began writing what would become his masterpiece, all while the shadow of the Second World War loomed over him, a conflict that would leave deep marks on the somber atmosphere of his narrative.
Behind it all was a rather unconventional passion: Tolkien loved ancient languages, Norse and Anglo-Saxon mythology, and dreamed of creating for England something he felt it lacked — a mythology of its own, as rich as Greek or Norse legends, but genuinely English. The characters and the plot came later; the language and the world came first.
From this vision came the first names to populate that universe: Bilbo Baggins, carried over directly from The Hobbit, followed by Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn, and Sauron — conceived over the nearly twelve years Tolkien spent finishing the work, written almost entirely by hand, revised and rewritten countless times until it took the shape we know today.
What began as the personal project of a professor in love with words would become, decades later, the foundation of an entire literary genre — the yardstick by which every epic fantasy would be measured from then on.