Early Fantasy Literature

But the first books which truly took people out of the world we inhabit were by Jules Verne, who, along with H. G. Wells, has been called “the father of science fiction.” Verne’s works, however, often seemed more like fantasy, and really got people in the frame of mind to read about “places strange and wondrous.” His many excellent works include Journey to the Center of the Earth, published in 1864, his most fantasy-like book, which is about a small group of people who, descending through the cone of an extinct volcano, manage to reach a fantastic world in the middle of the earth, where they have many strange adventures with the monstrous and dangerous inhabitants of that world.

Where fantasy really began to take off, however, was in the form of children’s stories. The first true fantasy book was written by L. Frank Baum in 1900, and is still a classic children’s story, as well as a yarn that adults and other people of all ages will enjoy. Its name, of course, is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, or just The Wizard of Oz.This was the first book to contain almost all of the elements of modern fantasy: a quest, a wicked witch, many fantastic and never-before-heard-of creatures, and, most of all, magic.

It was also almost the first book to show readers that magic has a good side, as well as a bad (Dorothy’s comment of "'But I thought all witches were wicked'" [Baum 13] being the historic point), a motif which would, of course, be adapted by almost every other writer of fantasy to come afterwards.

Baum’s series went on, going through 14 books until 1919, at which point Baum himself died and other authors took over the series. Thus, Oz has been kept alive right up through the modern day- a hundred years later.

The other major children’s author who furthered the cause of fantasy was E. Nesbit, whose stories contained much magic and amazing happenings, and usually have to do with a very powerful magical object (such as a talisman, or a strange creature) which fulfils the children’s dreams... until they discover that things were better off the way they were before. Five Children and It and Half Magic are good examples of his work.

After Nesbit, such stories took a long hiatus (with the exception of the continuing Oz series, which, after the death of L. Frank Baum, took a turn for the worse), not coming back into play until 1937, when an Oxford professor by the name of J.R.R. Tolkien published a children’s book called The Hobbit.

While presented as a tale for young people, adults found much to like in this story. It shows the reader a completely new world, apparently unrelated to our own, inhabited by elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls, dragons, wizards, and hobbits, a world in which magic was an accepted part of life and meeting one of these fantastic creatures was no big deal.

Needless to say, people of all ages loved the book, and soon people were clamoring for "more information concerning hobbits and their adventures" (Tolkien 8). Unfortunately, this information would be a long time in coming.

In fact, fantasy took another break until 1950, when C.S. Lewis, a member of The Inklings, a group of literary scholars and friends, which also included J.R.R. Tolkien, published a “fairy tale” (Lewis) called The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

In this wonderful story, a group of children are transported via magic to a land named Narnia, where talking animals, witches, dwarves, faun, satyrs, and various other magical and mythological creatures live. The tale is actually an allegory, but most people who read it read it for its own sake.

This book brought with it a resurgence on the part of the population of interest in fantasy literature, and it wasn’t long before their hunger was sated. J.R.R. Tolkien returned to the scene, but this time his books were no mere children’s stories. The Lord of the Rings, published in 1954-55, is the story of Bilbo’s nephew Frodo, who must take the magical-and evil-ring that his uncle found and destroy it. The only way to do this is to cast the thing into the Cracks of Doom-the fires of an active volcano in the heart of the country of Sauron, the worst evil in the world!

These three books were much deeper than any that people had seen before. Hundreds of characters grace the pages, from Samwise Gamgee, a simple gardening hobbit, to Gandalf the wizard, to Aragorn, a king of men, to Galadriel, a beautiful elvish queen, and hundreds of others. The world itself is now fully realized; magic abounds, old legends which hint at middle-earth’s past are told, and the language of the books vary from simple country dialects to kingly, high English. Most critics agreed that these books were excellent; there were the occasional few who called them such things as "juvenile trash," but there was no denying the fact that the books were wildly popular. Even today, they are reprinted practically every year, and hundreds of people discover them for the first time each month. It would be interesting to see where the books currently rank in sales at Amazon.com, especially with the movies coming out next year!

For fantasy itself, these books were excellent. Unfortunately, they also resulted in (seemingly) millions of hitherto unheard of authors attempting to capitalize on the success of them with their own "epic fantasies," most of which really were "juvenile trash." But, in the long run, the books sparked off worldwide interest in fantasy, and now thousands of books have been published in the genre, by authors such as Lloyd Alexander, Madeline L’Engle, Ursula LeGuin, and many, many more.