The Fellowship of The Ring - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

The poet W.H. Auden wrote a positive review in The New York Times, praising the excitement and saying "Tolkien's invention is unflagging, and, on the primitive level of wanting to know what happens next, The Fellowship of the Ring is at least as good as The Thirty-Nine Steps." However, he noted that the light humour in the beginning was "not Tolkien's forte". It was also favorably reviewed by nature writer Loren Eiseley. The most notorious negative criticism was from famed literary critic Edmund Wilson in his review entitled Oo, those awful Orcs.