Publisher's Synopsis
Differentiated book- It has a historical context with research of the time-Lieutenant Geoffrey Smith Bache (October 18, 1894 - December 3, 1916) was a friend of JRR Tolkien. Tolkien and Smith attended the King King's School in Birmingham together. Smith would also become a major TCBS member, but not until after Vincent Trought's death. At that time he was already enrolled at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, near Tolkien's Exeter College. The two became good friends there, because most of the other Edwardians went to Cambridge.Smith joined the 19th Lancashire Fusilliers Service Battalion, the "3rd Salford Pals", and participated in the Battle of the Somme. He was hit by shrapnel on November 29, 1916, and died four days later.In 1918, a collection of Smith's poetry was published, titled A Spring Harvest. Tolkien wrote the preface."My main consolation is that if they ruin me tonight, I will still have one member [of our school group] to express what I dreamed of and what we all agreed on. Because the death of one of its members cannot, I am determined, dissolve [the group]. Death can make us disgusting and helpless as individuals, but it cannot end the four immortals! May God bless you, my dear John Ronald, and may you say things that I have tried to say long after I am not there to say if that is my lot. "
