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JRR Tolkien: 'I Never Expected a Money Success'

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday October 28 2015, @10:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the one-ring-to-rule-them-all dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

"I never expected a money success," said Tolkien, pacing the room, as he does constantly when he speaks. "In fact, I never even thought of commercial publication when I wrote The Hobbit back in the Thirties.

"It all began when I was reading exam papers to earn a bit of extra money. That was agony. One of the tragedies of the underpaid professor is that he has to do menial jobs. He is expected to maintain a certain position and to send his children to good schools. Well, one day I came to a blank page in an exam book and I scribbled on it. 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

The piece is a pleasant read about the greatest fantasy writer of all time.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 29 2015, @06:26PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday October 29 2015, @06:26PM (#256151) Journal

    Without copyright, he would have never thought of writing Lord of the Rings! It was only the incentive of monetary return that motivated him to write his novels...
     
    Exactly! This is why we also need to keep increasing copyright terms. Otherwise, what incentive does he have to create any new works?

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