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by AlotOfReading 762 days ago
Elves and dwarves didn't strictly mean children's fairy tales prior to Tolkien. There's plenty of semi-popular prior art where they feature, like the Worm Ouroboros or The King of Elfland's Daughter. Poul Anderson also published The Broken Sword the same year as LOTR, which shows a lot of the same influences as written by a very different author.

Tolkien's importance is that the specific kinds of creatures he wrote became the default for virtually all subsequent authors and the popularity/quality of the works were pivotal in establishing fantasy as a "proper" genre.

1 comments

Plus Wagner's ring cycle.