You told me last time we had this discussion to look up some John Bauer, so I did. I acknowledge the point. Hobbit was not the only game in town. The game, but not the only game. I avoided bringing up the early sections of The Once and Future King, written almost exactly when the Hobbit was, because it obfuscated by anti-Moorcocksuckerian point.

And I'd never really known that about the origins of Conan the Barbarian -- though only in broad themes does that poem evoke Tolkien, not in artistry. Honestly the poem reminds me more of Terry Brooks-style fantasy. Faux high. Equivalent to pulp. No accident.

Tolkien was sixteen when this was first published.

Tolkien was, of course, unique in many more ways than just being the vanguard of the revival of mytho-fantasy. But I'll just remind you that he had more or less written the Fall of Gondolin and probably a good bit of the Hobbit in his head by that age.

This last is addressed back to the New Yorker and Moorcocksucker: for Tolkien it was about the languages and the history. It wasn't about denying Occupy Wall Street or whatever the hell they're blathering about.

EDIT: ever read this? It was around at roughly the time you would've been getting really into fantasy.