That’s when people first read about the clashes between gnomes, goblins, humans, elves and other populations of Middle-earth. Later, they would read the Lord of the Rings, and the world would forever fall in love with Tolkien as the father of the high fantasy genre. Love so great, that it would create an entire subculture of Tolkienists. By the way, toponyms of Middle-earth and names of Tolkien's characters have been given to real locations and animals, e.g. the Moria Cave in Australia, the slender smooth-hound or Gollumshark, and Macrostyphlus frodo.