pTHE STORY OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS - A BOOK THAT INSPIRED TOLKIEN. With original illustrations. THE PROFESSOR'S BOOKSHELF 9 ppProfessor J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, greatly enjoyed Arthurian stories, which he called 'powerful'. In fact, it was he who translated 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' a 14th-century romance about one of Arthur's knights into modern English. So profoundly did the legends of King Arthur move Tolkien that a few years before he wrote 'The Hobbit' he began to compose a poem in alliterative verse, entitled 'The Fall of Arthur'. Literary researchers have found several parallels between the Arthurian legends and 'The Lord of the Rings'. In her new introduction, Dart-Thornton discusses these similarities. It was 1903 when Howard Pyle's beautifully illustrated 'The Story of King Arthur and his Knights' was first published. At the time, J.R.R. Tolkien was an eleven year old boy. This new edition is ornamented with the original p