Terry Brooks. David Eddings. George R. R. Martin. Robin Hobb. The top names in modern fantasy all acknowledge J. R. R. Tolkien as their role model, the author whose work inspired them to create their own epics. But what writers influenced Tolkien himself? Here, internationally recognized Tolkien expert Douglas A. Anderson has gathered the fiction of authors who sparked Tolkien's imagination in a collection destined to become a classic in its own right.

Andrew Lang's romantic swashbuckler, "The Story of Sigurd," features magic rings, an enchanted sword, and a brave hero loved by two beautiful women — and cursed by a ferocious dragon. Tolkien read E. A. Wyke-Smith's THE MARVELLOUS LAND OF SNERGS to his children, delighting in these charming tales of a pixieish people "only slightly taller than the average table." Also appearing in this collection is a never-before-published gem by David Lindsay, author of VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS, a novel which Tolkien praised highly both as a thriller and as a work of philosophy, religion, and morals.

In stories packed with magical journeys, conflicted heroes, and terrible beasts, this extraordinary volume is one that no fan of fantasy or Tolkien should be without. These tales just might inspire a new generation of creative writers.

Introduction by Douglas A. Anderson
1. Ludwig Tieck - The Elves (1812, translated by Thomas Carlyle 1827)
2. George MacDonald - The Golden Key (1867)
3. E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen - Puss-Cat Mew (1869)
4. Frank R. Stockton - The Griffin and the Minor Canon (1885)
5. Richard Garnett - The Demon Pope (1888)
6. Andrew Lang - The Story of Sigurd 1890, retold)
7. William Morris - The Folk of the Mountain Door (1914)
8. H. Rider Haggard - Black Heart and White Heart. A Zulu Idyll (1896)
9. Edith Nesbit - The Dragon Tamers (1899)
10. John Buchan - The Far Islands (1899)
11. Clemence Housman - The Drawn Arrow (1923)
12. L. Frank Baum - The Enchanted Buffalo (1905)
13. Lord Dunsany - Chu-bu and Sheemish (1911)
14. William Hope Hodgson - The Baumoff Explosive (1919)
15. Kenneth Morris - The Regent of the North (1915)
16. Arthur Machen - The Coming of the Terror (1917 US, American condensed version of THE TERROR, 1916, book 1917)
17. Francis Stevens - The Elf Trap (1919)
18. James Branch Cabell - The Thin Queen of Elfhame (1922)
19. Abraham Merritt - The Woman of the Wood (1916)
20. E. A. Wyke-Smith - Golithos the Ogre (excerpt from THE MARVELLOUS LAND OF SNERGS, 1927)
21. Austin Tappan Wright - The Story of Alwina (1981)
22. David Lindsay - A Christmas Play (inedit)
Author notes and recommended reading by Douglas Anderson
*
Introduction, headnotes, compilation and author notes by Douglas A. Anderson
Cover design by David Stevenson
Cover illustration by John Howe
Book design by Julie Schroeder
First published (in hardcover) in August 2003 by Ballantine/Del Rey
This (trade) edition [in its] First edition, September 2003