South African-born John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973), more commonly known as J. R. R. Tolkien, became a British university professor, medieval scholar, and writer of fantasy. Tolkien's scholarly work at the University of Oxford centered on Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature. This scholarship is evident in the epic works he created about a fantasy world called Middle Earth. He wrote the first of these epics as a children's book titled The Hobbit (1937). This intricately detailed fantasy, however, is enjoyed by old and young alike. Its sequel, a trilogy titled The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), is an imaginative, profound tale of the conflict between good and evil. Tolkien also wrote literary criticism.

American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) was born in Rockland, Maine, and educated at Vassar College. After her graduation in 1917, she became a resident of Greenwich Village, supporting herself by writing short stories under different names. She also wrote several plays in verse for the Provincetown Players, an experimental theater group. Millay's major efforts were devoted to lyric poetry in A Few Figs from Thistles (1920), Second April (1921), and The Ballad of the Harp Weaver and Other Poems (1922), which earned her the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1923. Her mastery of the sonnet form is best illustrated in Collected Sonnets (1941) and Collected Lyrics (1943). Millay's work is characterized by a great facility in the use of traditional verse forms and in the expression of simple, strong emotions.