E. A. Wyke-Smith

Edward Augustine Wyke-Smith (1871–1935) was an English mining engineer who worked in Spain, Mexico and the United States before settling in England and taking up writing late in life. He produced a handful of children's books in the 1920s, among them Bill of the Bustingforths and The Marvellous Land of Snergs, published in 1927 for his daughter, which describes a race of short, strong, feast-loving people living in a hidden country. J. R. R. Tolkien read it aloud to his children and later acknowledged it as a probable unconscious source for the hobbits, and the book has since been reprinted mainly for that reason.