With its tales of the life or death battle of Frodo Baggins and his friends against the Dark Lord Sauron it has won an army of devoted readers and inspired a series of acclaimed films.

But JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings almost didn’t see the light of day after its author threatened to throw the book’s manuscript into the fire.

It has emerged that it was only the intervention of Tolkien’s close friend and mentor George Sayer which saved his work for publication and eventual posterity.

Now Mr Sayer is to receive an honour for his influence on budding writers from Malvern College, where he taught generations of students.

Sayer met Tolkien at Oxford in the early 1930s, through his tutor and close friend CS Lewis, the author of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the Narnia Chronicles.