The plot is actually a veiled allegory for Tolkein's growing hatred for the wedding ring that his wife Edith had bought him. The ring was a hideous two tone number. Starting in 1946, twenty years into their marriage, he began to ask her if they might be able to replace the ring. Edith was quite sentimental and remained unmoved by his appeals. The ring became something of an obsession for Tolkein, much to the detriment of his marriage. According to her diary Edith would sometimes turn over at night to see Tolkein holding it in his hand and examining it closely. When she finally relented and they went to a jeweler, Tolkien couldn't bring himself to part with the ring. He said it had, in his words, "become precious to him."
The character of Saruman was originally named Clewis, but Tolkein’s good friend and fellow Inkling C.S. Lewis took offense. Tolkein renamed the character Clive until Lewis pointed out that, that was in fact his own first name. Tolkein changed the name to Slewis. When Lewis again took offense, Tolkein said, “fine. He’s evil like Sauron is evil. He’s a man - like a man version of Sauron. I’ll call him Saruman. Happy?” Until his death, Tolkein would privately refer to Lewis as Saruman. Charles Williams noted that whenever Lewis would come late to an Inkling meeting, Tolkein would mutter, “the White Wizard approaches.”
It is rumored that Gimli’s thoughts on the scarcity of dwarf women stemmed from Tolkein’s frustrations with the shortage of women in the Inklings. Upon arriving at the Eagle and Child Tolkein would often say, “it smells like dude in here.”
In what is thought to be an homage to Melville’s whale chapters in Moby Dick, the original manuscript of The Two Towers originally included pages upon pages devoted to aspects of elf hygiene. The Inklings prevailed upon Tolkein to cut this material. One wonders if the Ring series would have been as successful if Tolkein had refused their advice and published the series under its original title Elvin Bicuspids.
Tolkein planned on publishing The Fellowship of the Ring under the pseudonym Owen Barfield until, as he walked to the publishers, he realized that Owen Barfield was, in fact, the name of one of his close friends.
If the Tolkein’s had a fifth child, either he or she would have been named Shelob. Tolkein felt free to use the name in the series because by the publication of The Two Towers in 1954, it had become apparent that the Tolkeins would not be having any more children
The comic relief provided by Gimli came about quite by accident. Before their meetings at The Eagle and Child, Warren Lewis would often do humorous but mean spirited impersonations of fellow Inkling Lord David Cecil. By the time Cecil arrived at the pub, the rest of the group would almost be in tears at Lewis’ biting mimicry. Tolkein would loudly say, “and then Gimli,” and continue with a story made up on the spot in order to spare Cecil’s feelings. As the Ring series progressed Tolkein would at times provoke Lewis into impersonating Cecil because he had found he was unable to think of any Gimli-stories, as he called them, without this dynamic. He began to call Lewis his muse and would force Lewis into wearing Cecil’s hats and using Cecil’s brand of aftershave. Tolkein confided to his wife that he couldn’t have finished The Return of the King without this strange practice. The dedication to this final book in the series was originally, “To my Lord David Cecils” but Lewis’ brother, the more notable CS Lewis, prevailed upon Tolkein to leave it out. Tolkein’s diary revealed that Tolkein continued to call Lewis late into the night even until 1973 asking, “is Lord Cecil in?”
The character of Gollum may have been based, in part, on Tolkein’s tailor Philip Bombegaard who often boasted of, “murdering a man by a riverside for not buying him a birthday present.”
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lest there be any confusion and the names of any of the Inklings besmirched, the above is completely fictitious.