Reader’s Corner: Tolkien on the Battlefield

In 1916, a 24-year-old J.R.R. Tolkien went off to fight for his country. He arrived in France just as the Battle of the Somme was about to erupt. At the end of the first day of fighting, almost 20,000 British soldiers were dead. The butchery went on for months. It would be a transformative experience for the young scholar.

Joseph Loconte writes in theTimes thatTolkien actually started writingThe Lord of the Rings by candlelight at the front.It’s not hard to see the inspiration of the Somme’s...