It was one of the earliest book-length analyses of Tolkien's work, winning Kocher the 1973 Mythopoeic Society's Scholarship in Inkling Studies Award.

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was a scholar of English literature, a philologist and medievalist interested in language and poetry from the Middle Ages, especially that of Anglo-Saxon England and Northern Europe.

His intention to create what has been called "a mythology for England"[4] led him to construct not only stories but a fully-formed world, Middle-earth, with invented languages, peoples, cultures, and history.

[5] The early literary reception of The Lord of the Rings was divided between enthusiastic support by figures such as W. H. Auden and C. S. Lewis, and outright rejection by critics such as Edmund Wilson.

Kocher suggests that the key is to think of Tolkien sitting by the fireside telling the story to a group of children: in the text, he addresses the reader directly.

Kocher discerns a "moral dynamism in the universe to which each [protagonist] freely contributes, without exactly knowing how"; in his view the thoughtful characters say enough to imply clearly "the order in which they believe" and the unseen "planner operating through it".

Kocher argues that far from using stereotyped characters or merely telling an adventure story, Tolkien explores both the individuals and the nature of their races, including Elves, Hobbits, Dwarves, Men, and Ents.

"Seven Leaves" – on seven of Tolkien's minor works: "Leaf by Niggle", The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, Farmer Giles of Ham, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, Smith of Wootton Major, Imram, and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

Kocher examines the varying techniques Tolkien uses in these diverse stories and poems, down to the "series of puns and comic touches" which keep "The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon" from seeming tragic.

Kocher notes, too, the irony in the poem and play The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, when Tolkien "lauds the dead [Anglo-Saxon] leader for that very quality that destroyed the people he was supposed to guard and guide".

The book ably described Tolkien's "theory of artistic creation (secondary world building), major philosophical and religious ideas, and moral imperatives", and evaluated his construction of myth.

I can't imagine many readers of Tolkien's mysterious, numinous story would want this sort of chattering commentary, ever-eager to analyse character, hand out good conduct marks for heroism, and really dig, say, the difference between a dwarf and an elf.

"[15] Charles W. Nelson, in Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, noting that the book was one of the first scholarly studies of Tolkien, wrote in 1994 that it contained "one of the most complete discussions of love and emotional attachments in the trilogy, including a fascinating treatment of self-love and its injurious affects on the evil characters".

[16] The science fiction author Karen Haber called the book the "highest point" of academic criticism of Tolkien during his lifetime.

[17] The scholar of religion Paul Nolan Hyde wrote in Religious Educator that Kocher was one of the early scholars who took Tolkien seriously, praising rather than decrying his prose style and his "real mastery as a writer" which (he quotes Kocher) "consists in his power to establish for each individual race a personality that is unmistakably its own... Further, each race has not only its gifts but also its private tragedy, which it must try to overcome as best it can.