The Hobbit

That is the verdict of Britain’s librarians who have voted The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the most important book a child can read.

When C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien first met on May 11, 1926 at Oxford University, where Tolkien was a professor of English language and Lewis a professor of English literature, they initially didn’t hit it off. Tolkien didn’t think English literature held much academic validity. Lewis’ Protestant upbringing had taught him never to trust a “Papist”; Tolkien was Catholic.