Author and book critic Anthony Price has died

Anthony Price, a longtime book reviewer and the author of the David Audley spy novels, has died at the age of ninety.

Price died May 30, his daughter told the New York Times. 

While he may not have been a household name, especially outside of his native England, his books were critically acclaimed.

Reviewers compared him to John le Carré, and at least one considered him among the all-time greats — his novel Other Paths to Glory was on the Daily Telegraph's list of the twenty best spy thrillers.

Another noteworthy moment in Price’s life came much earlier, when an editor asked him to share his critical opinion of a book that another reviewer rejected as “too boring.”

That book? The Fellowship of the Ring.

Price later told an interviewer that when he went to visit J.R.R. Tolkien, he was the first journalist the author had ever seen.

“So he lent me the proof copy of the second volume (of the Lord of the Rings trilogy), and the galley proofs of the third, annotated in his own hand.”

Read more about Price in the New York Times's obituary.