Why did Tolkien drag out his stories so much?

Shouldn't speak against Tolkien, he was one of the original fantasy authors.

Fantasy books written in the 1950s were different, old English.

What can I say that my esteemed colleague Andrew had not said already.

Possibly "Get lost, creep?"

@Jiraiya - the spirit of Tolkien is crying out in anguish to see you say he wrote in Old English: This is Old English:

Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum,þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

The first three lines of Beowulf

And everyone who objects to Tolkien's style - he wrote for grown-ups, not the modern fashionable YA fantasy where everyone talks like American teenagers.

Still at it, I see.  Let me plant this thought in your head; on the day you discover just WHO, though "what" might be more apt, Tom Bombadil is you will also pass the Gom Jabbar Test for Humanity.  That's a reference to another book you will hate.  I shouldn't poke, I know, but I can't help but wonder what a sucking wound where the human should be feels like.  Maybe it's like a full burn that knows no pain.  Others who see it can't compute that something so gruesome doesn't hurt.  John Donne might have called it wonderfull.

Many authors do, it is what their reader's like. I guess you are not one of them.

This website won't exist in 90 hours and you still can't summon the stones to post using your own screen name. How does that feel? You really are a pathetic little langer. Get this through yer dense noggin, boyo: Tolkien will continue to be regarded as the father of modern fantasy long, long after you're gone. Nobody gives a shite about your imbecilic whinging. It won't detract from the millions of books Tolkien has sold and it won't do anything to mar the reputation he has earned as a scholar or as an author. You're a friendless loser who will die a virgin, you have likely been bullied mercilessly over the course of your very unfulfilling and unhappy life and I squeal with glee inside that I have been given the opportunity to remind you what a spineless, pathetic little wretch you are. If you were to live 500 lifetimes you still wouldn't be worth Tolkien's first soiled nappy when he was mere minutes old. Get fecked, prick. 

Read other fantasies from the era, it was the styles, and it is Tolkien's books, Tolkien's style, not yours, he wrote for a different audience.

Have you thought that you might be the problem? Too used to books where plots are rushed through with no appreciation shown for the English language or literature?

Fast food is very different to the high end, high class restaurant meal.