The Religion of Middle-Earth

[ShadowHM]

I remember reading an article about why Tolkien wrote the books in the first place, which goes back to his days at school.  He was classmates with C. S. Lewis.  Tolkien was disappointed with how the Chronicles of Narnia went, so he set out to write something better.  And we ended up with Lord of the Rings.  Can you verify or deny this?  And weren't both stories started because of an assignment or something like that?

They were both Dons (Professors) at Oxford, IIRC, not classmates.

They were indeed good friends. But the LotR was not done as a quest for something better than the Chronicles of Narnia. Nor was it done as part of any 'assignment'.

A reasonable summary is found here:

http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html