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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Salamandyr" data-source="post: 7267606" data-attributes="member: 40233">Yes, the dates fit much better that he could have read it.  But is The Hobbit really what we're talking about here.  Even if Gygax first read the Hobbit as a child (entirely possible), and it sparked his love of fantasy, it's very clear that his fantastic vision was modified more by what he read since.As I recall, Gygax was much kinder to The Hobbit than he was to LOTR, but absent it's later sequel, it really wasn't the seminal work it is considered today.  It's really difficult for people today, inundated as we are with Tolkien, Tolkien-pastiches, Tolkien-reactions, and anti-Tolkiens, to understand that for grown-ups who had been reading fantasy for years, Tolkien was just another entry in the canon, no better, and sometimes worse, than what had come before.I imagine I probably annoyed my older nerds as a child with my love of all things Star Wars when they laugh and think about everything I saw as groundbreaking was already done in Flash Gordon serials and Gray Lensman stories.</blockquote>