J.R.R. Tolkien

  (1892 -1973)

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein South Africa. When he was three years old, he moved with his mom, Mabel Tolkien, to England.  He lost his father when he was very young.  In 1904, his mom died so he moved in with his aunt Hilary in Birmingham England.  In 1908 he went to Oxford University.  In 1915, he was awarded an honors award in English language and literature. In 1916, he married Edith Bratt whom he met in 1908.  In World War one he fought in Somme and returned to his home in Oxford with shellshock.  J.R.R. wrote to help with his condition.  It was during this time period that he wrote The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.  Starting in the mid 1960’s, paperback versions of The Lord of the Rings started to gain fame and John retired off of their success.  He then moved to Bournemouth.  However his wife died so he moved back to Oxford. In 1972, he received a CBE from the queen of England and in 1973, he died. 

            J.R.R. Tolkien had few inspirations for writing.  As a child living in Africa, he encountered a giant hairy spider which was believed to be one of his early inspirations for writing about mythical creatures.  His dad’s death as well as his shellshock served as other inspirations.  J.R.R. Tolkien’s last years were for the most part, pretty enjoyable.  He retired in 1959 off of the success of his Lord of the Rings books.  In fact, fans liked his books so much, that he eventually had to take his name out of the phonebook because he got continuous phone calls.  In 1972 he received a CBE which was eventually stolen.  And in 1973 he died at the age of 81.  He shares a tomb with his wife. 

            J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Catholic and considered himself, for the most part, conservative.  J.R.R. even converted his good friend C.S. Lewis to Catholicism.  He also believed that Hitler was less dangerous than the Soviet Union.  However, he thought the bombings on Hiroshima were bad.  He thought racism was bad, especially towards blacks (considering the fact that he was born in Africa).

            Since he first joined the Roman Catholic Church, J.R.R. Tolkien had always a liked a girl named Edith Bratt.  However one of the priests at Tolkien’s church forbade him to communicate with her until Tolkien was twenty one.  On Tolkien’s 21^st birthday, he wrote a love letter to Edith asking her to marry him.  She was already engaged.  However when they met in person, she decided to marry him.  He eventually converted her to Catholicism.    

- by Tom Stirling

The Books of J.R.R Tolkien

The Return of the King: being the third part of The Lord of the Rings. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1955. (The Lord of the Rings saw a second edition in 1966. The work has been reprinted many times in both hardcover and paperback.) Sir Gawain & The Green Knight. Ed. J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1925. (Now available in a second edition edited by Norman Davis.)

Other Books:

The Hobbit: or There and Back Again. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1937. (There was a second edition in 1951, and a third in 1966. Reprinted many times.) The Annotated Hobbit, Introduction and Notes by Douglas A. Anderson, Houghton Mifflin, Boston and HarperCollins, London, 1988.

Tree and Leaf. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1964. (Reprints Tolkien's lecture "On Fairy-Stories" and his short story "Leaf by Niggle".) New edition, incorporating "Mythopoeia", Unwin Hyman, London, 1988.

The Silmarillion. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1977.

Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode. Ed. Alan Bliss. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1982. (Tolkien's translations and commentaries.)

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1962.

One More TitleThe Reeve's Tale. Ed. " J.R.R.T." Oxford, 1939. (A version of Chaucer's tale prepared for a recital at the yearly summer diversions in Oxford.)

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