My memory may be betraying me - I was a kid when they came out - but my memory is off reading the first one shortly after it came out with no context that it was the new big thing and then a few months later it being this big sensation. My understanding is it became a big deal by word of mouth first and then the publishers caught up and magnified that
Glad you’re enjoying them! And yeah, the hobbits are much more fully characterised and mature.
Bears no resemblance to history and the prose us awful. Plot rattles aloing well though, there are definitely less enjoyable books
Well, making OED look dumb is a piece of pie apparently
I always understood the blurb to be the plot summary / pitch. I don’t read that usually - some massively spoil and even if they don’t there’s something great about the book telling you who the main character is, what the genre is and where the plot is going rather than turning up knowing all that.
The promotional quotes, to an extent the praise of the praiseworthy tells you something.
I don’t remember spoilers - in general I wouldn’t worry about them for things like Paradise Lost or Dante anyway.