Eric Rücker Eddison

Eric Rücker Eddison (1882–1945) was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford, and spent his working life as a British civil servant at the Board of Trade (1906–1938), reaching senior rank and appointed CMG (1924) and CB (1929) for his public service. He wrote The Worm Ouroboros (1922), his first and best-known novel, followed by three more set in the world of Zimiamvia — Mistress of Mistresses (1935), A Fish Dinner in Memison (1941), and the unfinished The Mezentian Gate, published after his death in 1958. J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis both admired his invented prose style, though Tolkien found Eddison's underlying philosophy uncongenial.