The Heroes of Middle-Earth
J. R. R. Tolkien & the Marks of Christian Heroism
by Leon J. Podles
J. R. R. Tolkien’s hold on the imagination has been surpassed by few writers in the twentieth century. His books have sold tens of millions of copies, and the website for The Lord of the Rings has had 30 million hits per month (at one point it was getting one million hits per hour). British readers have voted The Lord of the Rings as the best book of the twentieth century and, according to members of the Folio Society, the best English book ever.
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Leon J. Podles holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia and has worked as a teacher and a federal investigator. He is the author of The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity and the forthcoming License to Sin (both from Spence Publishing). His latest book is Losing the Good Portion: Why Men are Alienated from Christianity (St. Augustine’s Press). Dr. Podles and his wife have six children and live in Naples, Florida. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
more on J. R. R. Tolkien from the online archives
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