LIFE Photographer Nina Leen’s wide breadth of work ranged from fashion to documentary to animal portraiture. With an expansive portfolio, it comes as no surprise that she did not shy away from the macabre. For example, Leen had some of this work featured in a spread for an October 1957 issue of LIFE that covered America’s most famous ghost stories.
Years before her ghostly 1957 series—and over 250 years after the Salem Witch-trials of 1692—Leen visited Salem, Massachusetts to reexamine the horrific events in Salem. For the September 26, 1949 LIFE issue, Leen and the author Marion L. Starkey visited historic sites where the witch trials took place. They followed the narrative of Starkey’s new book at the time, The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials.
In her book, Starkey recounts the trials from a modern psychological perspective, coming to the conclusion that “boredom, drudgery, and fear of Hell” among the teenage accusers were to blame for the nineteen executions that resulted from the trials.
Leen and Starkey particularly followed the story of the seventy-one year old victim, Rebecca Nurse, who was hanged at Gallows Hill with four others on July 19, 1692. In the above image, Leen captures the ominous tree, protruding from the landscape on a gray New England day. In the 1940s, this is where historians believed the executions took place. More recent research has determined that the hangings actually took place at Proctor’s Ledge, which is located between modern-day Proctor Street and Pope Street in Salem, Massachusetts.
Salem’s “Witch House” with actors dressed in Puritan clothing for colonial reenactments, 1949.
(Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock)
Descendant of witchcraft accuser Ann Putnam, holding a flower, 1949. Putnam was Nurse’s original accuser. She later recounted her accusations against Nurse in 1706.
(Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock)
Sewing pins that were used as “evidence” in Nurse’s trial. During the witch-trials, it was reported that they were used by “witches” to torture their victims.
(Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock)
Another victim of the witch trials was Tituba, an enslaved woman that worked for the Reverend Samuel Parris’ household. The image below is a sign that marks the site of “…where the young girls congregated to hear weird stories told by Tituba The West Indian Servant”.
Plaque establishing the site of the Reverend Samuel Parris’ home.
Gary Cooper appeared in 117 acting movies, but he is best remembered for his starring role in High Noon. In that movie he played Marshal Will Kane, the one good man who was both willing and able to stand down evil in a small town. Cooper’s persona was so singular that decades later on the television show The Sopranos, Cooper was repeatedly held up as the epitome of lost manliness. Tony Soprano would often lament, “What ever happened to Gary Cooper, the strong, silent type?”
When Cooper died of cancer at the age of 60 on May 13, 1961, some identified it right away as the end of an era. LIFE’s issue of May 26, 1961 quoted the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera as saying, “Perhaps with him there is ended a certain America…that of the frontier and of innocence which had or was believed to have an exact sense of the dividing line between good and evil.”
Cooper’s funeral, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, brought out Hollywood royalty. Actor John Wayne, who LIFE called in its report on the funeral “Coop’s successor as dean of cowboys,” attended with his wife. The pallbearers included good friends Jack Benny and Jimmy Stewart. It was Stewart who, at the Academy Awards several weeks prior, had accepted a lifetime achievement award on the behalf of the ailing Cooper. In his acceptance speech Stewart, nearly breaking up at one point, said, “Coop, I’ll get this to you right away. And Coop, I want you to know this, that with this goes all the warm friendship and the affection and the admiration and the deep, the deep respect of all of us. We’re very, very proud of you, Coop. All of us are tremendously proud.”
Cooper’s memorial was also attended by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Those leading lights of the Rat Pack had hosted a dinner for Cooper in January 1961 at the Friar’s Club. Bob Hope came to the church to pay his respects to Cooper, as did Marlene Dietrich, who had costarred with Cooper in the 1930 films Morocco and Desire. Alec Guinness, Karl Malden, Dinah Shore, Rosalind Russell, and many others were in attendance as well.
LIFE’s tribute to Cooper, which was headlined “Hollywood Mourns a Good Man,” ran for eight pages. The story on his life and career included an anecdote about the actor’s surprising encounter with a very different icon of his day, Cubist painter Pablo Picasso. “When Cooper met Pablo Picasso in France, he said `You’re a hell of a guy, but I really don’t get the pictures. The great artist was delighted.`That doesn’t matter,’ Picasso said. “If you really want to do something for me, get me one of those hats you wear in the movies.” Picasso (who got the hat and sent Cooper a painting) was not alone in being charmed by Cooper’s directness and his refusal to be what he was not.”
Most photos of LIFE’s photos of Cooper’s funeral focused on the mourners, but some showed the crowd. While some onlookers were no doubt attracted by the celebrities, many look as if they too were lamenting the passing of the actor who personified the strong, silent type.
Funeral services for actor Gary Cooper, Los Angeles, 1961.
J.R. Eyerman/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
John Wayne and wife arrived for funeral service for actor Gary Cooper, Los Angeles, 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Frank Sinatra arrived at funeral services for Gary Cooper, Los Angeles, 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Dean Martin (left) arrived at the funeral service for Gary Cooper, Los Angeles, 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Bob Hope arrived at funeral services for Gary Cooper, Los Angeles, 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Alec Guinness (center) and Karl Malden (back left) arrived at church for funeral service for actor Gary Cooper, Los Angeles, 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Actress Marlene Dietrich arrived at funeral services for Gary Cooper, Los Angeles, 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Actress Rosalind Russell and her husband, producer Frederick Brisson, arrived at church for the funeral service for actor Gary Cooper, Los Angeles, 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Singer Dinah Shore arrived at the funeral service for actor Gary Cooper, Los Angeles, 1961,
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Jimmy Stewart (right) and Jack Benny (two behind Stewart) were among the friends who served as pallbearers at the funeral of Gary Cooper, Los Angeles, 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Jack Benny (back left) and Jimmy Stewart (back, right) were among the friends who served as pallbearers at Gary Cooper’s funeral, Los Angeles, 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Jimmy Stewart (back left) and Jack Benny (front left) were among the friends who served as pallbearers at the funeral of Gary Cooper, Los Angeles 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Photographers and police at the funeral for Gary Cooper, Los Angeles, 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Onlookers at the funeral of Gary Cooper, Los Angeles 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Onlookers at the funeral of Gary Cooper, Los Angeles 1961.
Grey Villet/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Veronica Balfe, widow of Gary Cooper, arrived at his funeral, Los Angeles, 1961.
We’ve all been there, at the moment when a previously lovely party suddenly becomes Alcatraz, and the inmates’ thoughts turn to escape.
The people in these photos certainly knew that feeling. Back in the day LIFE sent photographers to all sorts of parties, and while snapping photos of gatherings of celebration and joy, they occasionally captured images of people who looked like they would give anything to be home and in bed.
Knowing how to handle such moments without being rude is a common social dilemma, and the Internet is full of guides on knowing when to leave a party, and the right way to do it. Marie Claire offered up multiple graphs that help you figure out the right time to leave. The magazine Southern Comfort, for instance, offers pearls of advice, including the suggestion that when you exit early, do it quietly: “Unless you are leaving your own wedding reception, there is no reason everyone at the party should be made aware of your exit. Save the trumpets and tears for your own affairs. Please.”
Of course there are some guests who love parties so much they will always be the last person out the door—including author Elena Ferrante, who explains why in an article which explains her reluctance, saying that “separating from people feels like a blast of cold air.” But then the parties she is talking about are probably the fun kind, in someone’s home with a good mix of close friends and interesting strangers. Most of the parties that LIFE photographers attended were big public affairs where the line between work and pleasure was often blurred.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was surely of a different mindset than your conventional partygoer at a Democratic fundraiser. It is possible that movie director Alfred Hitchcock attended the tribute dinner for powerful Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons at least in part out of professional obligation; the look on the face of the master of suspense suggests that at that very moment he might have been conceiving the shower scene from Psycho.
The person most clearly in work mode in these photos is Soviet politician Andrei Vishinsky, photographed at a dinner party for delegates to the Danube River Conference of 1948, held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The conference is remembered in history as the moment in which the diplomatic breach between Russia and its Western allies from World War II became clear. During the conference LIFE described Vishinsky as operating with a “chill ferocity” as he told Western allies, “The door was open for you to come in. The door is open for you to leave, if that is what you wish.”
So as Vishinsky sat alone and looking fed up in the picture taken by John Phillips, he was perhaps, like so many other tired party guests, thinking of what else he would rather be doing—even if, in his case, it was getting on with the business of cleaving the world in half.
Attendees at the Jackson-Jefferson Day dinner, a Democratic party fundraiser, in 1944.
J.R. Eyerman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Attendees at a party thrown by Lady Mendl, a prominent interior designer and the wife of English diplomat Sir Charles Mendl, 1939.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Celebration of the season opening of the New York Philharmonic, 1958.
Gordon Parks/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Gloria Vanderbilt, seated to the right of legendary composer Jule Styne, at a celebration of the opening of the New York Philharmonic season, 1958.
Gordon Parks/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Tthe Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Fashion Ball, New York, 1960.
Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Fashion Ball, New York, 1960.
Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Attendees at a party thrown by Lady Mendl, a prominent interior designer and the wife of English diplomat Sir Charles Mendl, 1939.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Attendees at a party thrown by Lady Mendl, a prominent interior designer and the wife of English diplomat Sir Charles Mendl, 1939.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Attendees at a party thrown by Lady Mendl, a prominent interior designer and the wife of English diplomat Sir Charles Mendl, 1939.
William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Comedienne Martha Raye and husband David Rose attended a Gay 90s party hosted by ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, 1939.
Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Actor Thomas Beck and actress Patricia Kirkland shared dinner at a gathering of New York actors at a house in Pennsylvania, 1947.
Nina Leen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a fundraising dinner, 1937.
Peter Stackpole/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
A view of members of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority singing at an engagement party on the campus at the University of Kansas, 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Movie director Alfred Hitchcock, with his wife Alma, sitting near actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and actress Joan Fontaine., during a testimonial dinner for columnist Louella Parsons, 1948.
Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
United Nations Ball, 1951.
John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The woman at the left is not at all into the party game put together by Frederick Lewis Allen (left), author and Harper’s’ Magazine editor and his author wife Agnes Rogers (left, back to camera) in which describing in which a painting is described and guests try to draw it.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
French actress Arletty (left) and designer Andrew de Beaurepaire wopre matching costumes for the Classical Ball in Paris, 1949.
Nat Farbman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Parisians dressed up as gods and goddess of ancient Rome at a Classical Ball, 1949.
Nat Farbman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Prince Aly Khan’s party, 1959.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE pictures/Shutterstock
The Jackson-Jefferson fundraiser for the Democratic party, 1944.
J.R. Eyerman/LIFE pictures/Shutterstock
Soviet deputy Andrei Vishinsky attended a dinner party for delegates to the Danube River Conference of 1948 in Belgrade; the conference was a noted diplomatic showdown between former World War II Allies from the West and the East.
“I get many letters from all over the country about Sherlock Holmes,” the detective’s creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, once said. “One letter actually contained a request for portraits of Sherlock at different periods of his life.” Other fans requested autographs—from Holmes, not Doyle.
No literary character has blurred the line between reality and fiction more than Sherlock Holmes—and not just because readers continue to believe that he’s real. In the 56 stories and four novels that began with 1887’s A Study in Scarlet, Holmes became one of the first detectives (fictional or otherwise) to use chemistry, toxicology, blood stains, and ballistics to solve crimes—all of which contributed to real-life advances in criminology. In 1910, Holmes inspired a pioneer of modern forensic science, Edmond Locard, to build the world’s first crime lab—23 years after Doyle simply invented one.
In her book Mastermind, psychologist Maria Konnikova uses neuroscience and psychology to show how Holmes’s methodologies can help our brains develop. And the detective’s emphasis on simplicity can help modern doctors who feel overwhelmed by new technical information, according to the journal Medical Humanities. “It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital,” the journal quotes Holmes. “Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated.”
But Holmes’s real-world relevance exists only because his fictional world seems so, well, real—despite its abundance of delightful absurdities. (A phony hellhound! A blowgunwielding dwarf! A priceless gem hidden in a Christmas goose!) The stories’ heady mix of rationality and gee-whizzery, of credulity and skepticism, is also reflected in the wildly disparate lives of the character and his creator. “The world is big enough for us,” Holmes said. “No ghost need apply.” But Doyle himself believed in ghosts—not to mention fairies.
In LIFE’s special issue on the power of Doyle’s creation, you’ll find the stories of these two men: one of them real, the other realer than real—both of them immortal.
Holmes captured another criminal in this illustration by Sidney Paget, which appeared in the Strand Magazine in October 1903 with the story “The Adventure of the Empty House.”
Historia/Shutterstock
An illustration from one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous Holmes stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles, published in 1901-2.
Historia/Shutterstock
In this illustration by Sidney E. Paget, the first artist to draw the detective, Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty battled to their apparent death at the edge of Reichenbach Falls.
Universal History Archive/Getty
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, with his second wife, Jean Elizabeth Leckie.
adoc-photos/Corbis/ Getty
Benedict Cumberbatch played Sherlock Holmes on the BBC in 15 mysteries that aired between 2010 and 2017.
Robert Downey Jr. (right) and Jude Law portrayed Holmes and Watson in the 2011 film “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” a follow-up on their 2009 film Sherlock Holmes.
Jackie Gleason was one of the great entertainers of the early years of television. His most enduring work is the sitcom The Honeymooners, whose original run of 39 episodes from 1955-56 is regarded as a classic of the medium, with Rolling Stone recently rating it as one of Top 10 sitcoms ever. But Gleason had many other TV projects in those years, including hosting the wildly popular variety program The Jackie Gleason Show. He would often introduce acts with the signature phrase, “And away we go.”
LIFE magazine repurposed that catchphrase in its Oct. 5, 1962 issue with the headline “And Away We Go—Again,” for a cover story about Gleason’s return to television as the host of a new variety show.
To promote this show, Gleason chartered a train and went on a cross-country tour. (Why a train? Gleason became afraid of flying after a plane that he was on had to make an emergency landing in Tulsa, Oklahoma after two if its engines failed.) As LIFE reported, “The five-car Gleason special, which cost $90,000 for the ten day trip, carried his company of TV performers and a six-piece jazz band.”
LIFE photographer Allan Grant was along for the ride. Three of Grant’s photos from that train trip ran in the magazine—one of him dancing to the music of the live band on the car, one of him with balloons with the words THE GREAT GLEASON EXPRESS, and another of him celebrating a golf shot with some of his famously exuberant body language during one of the tour’s stops. But Grant shot 844 images in total, and they tell a story that goes beyond the show that Gleason was promoting, creating a deep and broad portrait a comedy star.
First, Jackie Gleason liked to live large, and these photos capture that Rabelaisian aspect of his a public persona. At his tour stops Gleason hits the race track and the pool hall as well as the golf course, and in all these settings he is flanked by the attractive women in his traveling party. On the train, he was photographed dancing with those women while the live band played. It feels like everything is set up so that Gleason could at any moment turn to the camera and utter another one of his catch phrases, “How sweet it is.”
Grant’s camera also captures the less sweet moments. There are shots in which the 46-year-old entertained looks understandably exhausted. Then there are the photo-ops that land flat—such as when Gleason mounts a horse-drawn wagon, or pumps one of those old-time hand rail cars.
Above all, the photos show what it means to have the heart of an entertainer.
Gleason, born in Brooklyn, N.Y., came from difficult circumstances. His older brother died when he was three; his father abandoned the family five years later; his mother died of sepsis when he was 19. Many great comedians forged their audience-pleasing skills during tough times, but wherever it came from, Gleason had a gift for entertaining which showed early, emceeing the school talent showas an eighth grader. He would drop out of high school and take a job as a master of ceremonies at a local theater. He developed not only a quick wit but a vaudevillian versatility with song and dance that would serve him throughout his career.
And long after he had made it big, he continued to work tirelessly. His list of show business credits is improbably long. In addition to his television work he appeared in plenty of movies, earning an Academy Award nomination in 1961 for his portrayal of pool legend Minnesota Fats film in The Hustler. Gleason was also prolific in the field of music, issuing an astounding 47 jazz albums. But, as Gleason told LIFE in 1962, “TV is what I love best,” he said, “and I’m too much of a ham to stay away.”
In Grant’s pictures what you see, above all else, is Gleason’s ability to be the life of the party. It’s no mystery why, whenever the train stopped at he met with the public, the halls were packed. When he relocated his show from New York to Miami in 1964, he revved up the Great Gleason Express again for the move down. He certainly a man who enjoyed the ride.
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason celebrated making a shot at the Broadmoore Hotel, Denver, during a 1962 publicity trip promoting his return to TV.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Comedian Jackie Gleason at Broadmoore Hotel, Denver, during publicity trip re his return to TV.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Gleason on “The Great Gleason Express” tour promoting his return to television, 1962.
The following is from the introduction to LIFE’s new special issue The Lord of the Rings: The Origins, the Stories, the Extraordinary Adventure, available at newsstands and here, online:
“Fantasy has a history of misfires,” filmmaker Peter Jackson told Entertainment Weekly in 2001, just weeks before the release of his first movie based on The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary landmark. “For every other genre—Westerns, war—you can name truly amazing films. So fantasy is interesting, because there aren’t really any clichés. It’s [a chance] to give an audience an original experience.”
Back in 1937, that’s precisely what the fledgling novelist and distinguished Oxford professor had done with The Hobbit. His debut, set in his imagined world of Middle-earth, drew on a long-running fascination with fairy tales and Norse myth, creating a high-fantasy world unlike anything ever previously committed to paper. The tale of a resolute homebody, hobbit Bilbo Baggins, drawn into a quest—involving wizards, dwarves, elves, giant spiders, a fire-breathing dragon, a hoard of gold, and a massive conflict among five armies—immediately captured the public’s imagination and vaulted the novel to best-seller status.
Tolkien then spent 17 years crafting the sequel, and it proved worth the wait. Spanning more than 1,100 pages over three volumes, The Lord of the Rings told a far more complicated story, dense with mythology and invented languages, and made for a dazzling read. Even if it perplexed certain critics, it gained an immediate foothold with a generation of readers and forever changed the cultural landscape.
“His work reflected the potential of fantasy as a genre, and its influence extended beyond fantasy as well,” says Tolkien scholar Amy H. Sturgis, an author and professor at Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina. “His stories spawned many imitators, but they also continue to inspire creators who seek to tell different tales from other perspectives. Just think of modern mythologies like Star Trek or Star Wars; they use detailed maps and created languages and invented histories for imaginary cultures in order to build immersive worlds and galaxies. They invite audiences to inhabit these fictional landscapes and explore the human condition through their hopeful morality tales. That’s Tolkienian storytelling.”
The Lord of the Rings novels found an especially receptive audience among the American counterculture, becoming fixtures on university bookshelves across the country, which grew their popularity and influence. “The hobbit habit seems to be almost as catching as LSD,” proclaimed Time magazine in 1966. “On many U.S. campuses, buttons declaring FRODO LIVES and GO GO GANDALF—frequently written in Elvish script—are almost as common as football letters.”
Among those Me Generation fans was future author Stephen King, who has cited The Lord of the Rings as one of his 10 favorite novels. “Hobbits were big when I was nineteen,” King writes in the introduction to one of the books in his Tolkien-inspired Dark Tower series. “There were probably half a dozen Merrys and Pippins slogging through the mud at Max Yasgur’s farm during the Great Woodstock Music Festival, twice as many Frodos, and hippie Gandalfs without number,” he continued, naming popular characters from the saga.
In the decades since, The Lord of the Rings has served as a gateway for readers to discover the joys of adventure stories set in worlds far beyond their own. It has inspired authors to explore the furthest reaches of their imaginations and conjure countless stories that are equally beloved. “Of all the authors [that] had an impact on me . . . Tolkien is right up there at the top,” said George R.R. Martin, whose novels spawned the blockbuster TV series Game of Thrones, in 2019. “I yield to no one in my admiration for The Lord of the Rings—I re-read it every few years. It’s one of the great books of the 20th century . . .”
Of Tolkien’s many famous fans, however, few may understand and treasure his work more deeply than comedian and late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert, who can even read Tolkien’s invented Elvish language. “Tolkien’s work has been a lifelong haven for me—truly a light in dark places when all other lights went out,” Colbert wrote in EW in 2014. “For an awkward teenager, Middle-earth was a world I could escape to.”
Filmmaker Peter Jackson read The Lord of the Rings in his later teen years, not realizing he’d someday return Tolkien’s epic to the forefront of popular culture. Released between 2001 and 2003, Jackson’s cinematic Rings trilogy dominated the worldwide box office, earning billions and racking up countless critical accolades. No longer just the domain of fantasy devotees, the story of heroic Frodo Baggins and his quest to destroy the Ring of Power became inescapable—though some longtime Tolkien experts were less enamored with the movies than general audiences.
“Ever since the Jackson adaptations were released there have been fans who confuse what Tolkien wrote with what Jackson filmed,” say Tolkien scholars Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull in an e-mail to LIFE. “Jackson did well from his films, but they sharply [and] sometimes angrily divided Tolkien enthusiasts, some of whom praise them highly and accept their many departures from their source, while others—such as ourselves—find them seriously flawed.”
Subsequent attempts at adaptation have fared less well than Jackson’s Rings juggernaut. Theater producer Kevin Wallace raised about $25 million to mount a three-and-a-half-hour Lord of the Rings musical onstage in Toronto, in 2006. Unfortunately, according to the Guardian, the production was “an unmitigated disaster.” A retooled, trimmed-down version premiered on London’s West End in 2007 but unceremoniously closed the following year.
If anything, the musical’s woes speak to how challenging it can be to get Tolkien right. Jackson struggled with his follow-up adaptation of The Hobbit, which he also made into a trilogy. Although the films once again found commercial success, they didn’t catch fire in quite the same way his Rings trilogy had—by that point, Game of Thrones had become a sensation in its own right, offering fans a more mature take on the fantasy genre. (Jackson also stated that behind-the-scenes turmoil on the productions left him with less time to prepare than he might have liked.)
There are yet more Tolkien projects ahead. Amazon announced a Lord of the Rings series, due to arrive in 2022. Set during Middle-earth’s Second Age, the TV show will take place thousands of years prior to the period of Jackson’s movies. Early reports indicate that the first season will consist of 20 episodes, all shot in New Zealand, on a staggering $465 million budget.
Future adaptations will certainly come and go, but regardless of their success or failure, Tolkien’s writings will endure. Even though his stories were conceived long ago and unfold in a landscape different from our own, the crises the characters face and the work’s underlying themes remain imminently relatable and relevant.
“We live in a complicated world with multiple, simultaneous crises unfolding,” says Sturgis. “It is easy to feel not only stressed but also helpless and hopeless. . . . Tolkien reminds us that the smallest and most humble can be heroes; there is a part everyone can play in fighting the darkness and making the world better. Most importantly, Tolkien acknowledges that even in the direst of times, we have reason to hope. Our need for consolation, inspiration, and hope is evergreen.”
J .R. R. Tolkien, Oxford professor and author of The Lord of the Rings, 1955.
Haywood Magee/Picture Post/Getty
In The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, those forming an alliance to wage war against evil included Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Boromir (Sean Bean) and, in the background, Gandalf (Ian McKellan) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davis).
Allstar Picture Library Ltd./Alamy
Sam (Sean Astin) had little trust for Gollum in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Pictorial Press Ltd./Alamy
Frodo (Elijah Wood) beheld the enchanting ring in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
Allstar Picture Library Ltd./Alamy
A rightwraith tracked Frodo (Elijah Wood), Sam (Sean Astin) Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Merry (Dominic Monaghan) early on their journey in The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.
AA Film Archive/Alamy
Andy Serkis, with the help of special effects.,played the role of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies.
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Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and Arwen (Liv Tyler) in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
KPA Publicity Stills/United Archives GmbH/Alamy
Gandalf (Ian McKellan) took up arms in one of the brilliantly staged battle scenes in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
Allstar Picture Library Ltd./Alamy
Gandalf (Ian McKellan) in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Director Peter Jackson (center) was flanked by screenwriters Fran Walsh (left) and Philippa Boyens after they won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, February 29, 2004.
