Books: Chronicles of two pen pals; COLIN DURIEZ J.R.R Tolkien and C.S Lewis: The Story Of Their Friendship (Sutton Publishing, pounds 20).

Byline: CAROLINE WHEELER

THEY both came from humble beginnings and went on to become literary giants.

One spent his early life in the urban heartland of Birmingham, the other spent his formative years living on the fringes of Belfast.

But both grew up to be celebrated authors whose lives and works have inspired epic movies.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in South Africa on January 3, 1892, but moved to Birmingham with his family three years later.

'Tolers' -as he was known by family and friends -lived in various areas of the city, including Edgbaston and Kings Heath.

But it was not until his family moved to a small property opposite Sarehole Mill that Tolkien found somewhere he could really call home.

It was here that he fell in love with the Midland countryside which inspired Middle-Earth. It gave him his first glimpse of the area which would become hobbit homeland, the Shire.

'The Shire is very like the kind of world in which I first became aware of things,' Tolkien once reminisced.

'Just at the age where imagination is opening out, suddenly to find yourself in a quiet Warwickshire village, I think it engenders a particular love of what you might call central Midlands countryside.'

It was the start of a love affair with the region that which would lead Tolkien to write the Lord of the Rings trilogy, But his ideas for the novel, developed during boyhood, would never have come to fruition if it hadn't been for a special friendship that was was to change the face of English literature.

Midland author Colin Duriez tells the incredible story of the relationship between Tolkien and C.S Lewis for the first time in a book which takes the reader on a fascinating journey through their early lives.

Their first tumultuous meeting came in 1926 at Oxford University, where Tolkien had just taken up his post as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon.

The encounter was not a success. Within minutes Tolkien offended Lewis by remarking: 'All literature is written for the amusement of men between 30 and 40.'

But within three years Lewis became an ardent supporter. Tolkien later admitted that the Lord of the Rings would never have been published without the backing of his friend.

The pair became inseparable and would often be found deep in debate late into the night discussing strengths and weaknesses of their contemporary authors, including poet W.H. Auden.

Their discussions often strayed off the realms of art and literature and into such topics as language, philosophy and theology. In a few short years Tolkien had a profound influence on Lewis, who became a devout Christian and a supporter of Tolkien's new-fangled English literature syllabus, which took a holistic approach to the study of the subject.

Tolkien's idea was that English literature could not be taught without reference to subjects like philosophy and psychology.

At first his suggestion was deemed too radical, but within years Oxford University adopted his approach and changed the way English was taught at universities across the country.

But it wasn't all plain sailing. The men's friendship was not always harmonious and was fraught with artistic tension.

Tolkien disapproved of Lewis' famous Chronicles of Narnia -ironically now being filmed in the same New Zealand splendour as The Lord Of The Rings -which he thought frivolous and 'slapdash'.

The Midland author also took offence at Lewis' 'strange' second marriage to American author Joy Davidman. Their love affair became the subject of the movie Shadowlands, starring Anthony Hopkins.

Even after her death from cancer in 1960, the literary friends were never able to rekindle their former intimacy.

Tolkien last saw Clive Staples Lewis just a few weeks before he died in November 1963. The master of middle-Earth himself spent the last years of his life as an honorary professor at Merton College, before his own death in 1973.

CAPTION(S):

FRIENDS: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and, above, Clive Staples Lewis