JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis used to regularly share a pub table in Oxford to discuss their work. The pair will now be honoured side by side in Westminster Abbey, which will celebrate the author of The Lord of the Rings with a memorial in Poets’ Corner, The Times can reveal.
Only feet away from where Lewis, the author of the Narnia series, has a plaque on the abbey floor, Tolkien is to be honoured with an ornate 2.5-metre memorial fitted to a pillar, depicting a magical tree with a variety of fruits and flowers that he frequently drew.
It will be unveiled next spring to mark the 90th anniversary of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and the 50th anniversary of The Silmarillion, which was published posthumously.
Full story in the Times. And information from Westminster Abbey.