Cultural WI: Tolkien and C.S. Lewis had died in a fire in the Eagle and Child pub

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are the best known members of the Inklings: http://www.tolkien-online.com/inklings.html, which began meeting in 1933 or 1934. On Tuesday nights the Inklings met in the Eagle and Child public house in Oxford.

So what if the fire was on the night of Tuesday 8 March 1938. Tolkien, Lewis and other Inklings die in the fire. As regards Lewis there are no Narnia stories and his works of Christian apologetics. As regards Tolkien in a letter dated 4 March 1938 to Stanley Unwin, his publisher, he said that "The sequel to The Hobbit has now progressed as far as the end of the third chapter."

In this scenario how would Tolkien be remembered as a writer of fiction? In a letter to the editor of The Observer printed in that newspaper on 20 February 1938, Tolkien referred to an unpublished book - "the 'Silmarillion' a history of the Elves. Would it be published?

How would fantasy fiction develop without Lewis and much more importantly Tolkien?
 
I've been to the Eagle and Child. It's not very large and it's all on one floor. If, say, there's a kitchen fire, escaping would be fairly easy.

Maybe if there's a gas-line explosion, that might be more doable. :D
 
Well say there is a gas explosion. If that scenario is not realistic how about Tolkien was killed in a road traffic accident in Oxford in say mid March 1938. C. S. Lewis lives as long as he did in OTL.

The reference to Tolkien's letters in my previous post are taken from the book The Letters of J.R.R.Tolkien, a selection edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien, London: HarperCollins, 1995.
 
Well Tolkien is the one who popularised high fantasy, so without him this genere might develop much later or not at all. Low fantasy on th other hand was allready alive and flurishing by that point, so it probably would develop more or less the same.

Anothe point to consider. Without Tolkien and Lewis with their brand of Christain and Christain-themed fantasy, the dislike for the genre that exists today in certain fringe Protestant communities might be more widespread among Christains, as fantasy would be more readily seen as a frivolous and "pagan-influenced" genre.
 
Fantasy Elves may stay small and magical, rather than tall and lordly. Fantasy dwarfs might develop Scottish/Norse looks anyways, since they did OTL despite Tolkien writing them as somewhat Jewish.
 
Fantasy Elves may stay small and magical, rather than tall and lordly. Fantasy dwarfs might develop Scottish/Norse looks anyways, since they did OTL despite Tolkien writing them as somewhat Jewish.

The toughest and most awesome Jews around. They can stand up to dragon-fire.

(A bunch of them did in IIRC the Battle of the Unnumbered Tears due to their armor. And when their chieftain died they retreated from the battle bearing his body and nobody dared bother them.)
 
The toughest and most awesome Jews around. They can stand up to dragon-fire.

(A bunch of them did in IIRC the Battle of the Unnumbered Tears due to their armor. And when their chieftain died they retreated from the battle bearing his body and nobody dared bother them.)

I think Jews' toughness is often underestimated. :p

He obviously took some aspects from actual Germanic mythology including names, but he is on record himself as wanting to portray them as somewhat Semitic, and they do fit some stereotypes (mostly positive) pretty well.
 
The toughest and most awesome Jews around. They can stand up to dragon-fire.

(A bunch of them did in IIRC the Battle of the Unnumbered Tears due to their armor. And when their chieftain died they retreated from the battle bearing his body and nobody dared bother them.)

Eh, Tolkien's dwarves got owned by dragons on just about every occassion. :p
 
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