A Biography of J.R.R. Tolkien


John Ronald Reul Tolkien was born on January 3rd 1892 in Boloemfotien, South Africa to Mabel and Arthur Tolkien. His dad moved from England prior to his birth to work in the banking industry in South Africa.He had a younger brother named Hilary who was born in 1894.The first few years of his life were marked by illnesses, and so, for the health of her children, Mabel and the boys moved to England. His father stayed in South Africa and Tolkien never really saw him again.From there, Tolkien's mother raised the 2 boys Catholic. They lived with his maternal grandparents in Birmmingham until they moved into a nearby village called Sarehole.
At the age of 7, Tolkien took an entrance exam for King Edwards School. He failed. In that same year, Tolkien wrote a story about a green dragon that he shared with his mother. This was one of the first stories that Tolkien even created.Also, during his childhood, he held a fascination with languages. The next year, Tolkien tried again for King Edwards School and passed the exam this time.When he was 12, his beloved mother, Mabel died of diabetes. She was only 34.A family freind, named Father Francis, arranged for the boys to live with thier Aunt Beatrice. The boys also hung aroud Birmmingham Oratory to help Father Francis with Masses and to get breakfast before school.
Aunt Beatrice lived in the city, and the arrangement was not too comfortable, so the boys moved again to the home of someone named Mrs. Falkner. There, Tolkien met a girl named Edith Bratt. She was to be his future wife.A romance blossomed between the two.Father Francis felt that the relationship would deter Tolkien's education, so Father Francis forbade him from seeing her until he was 21. In 1911, Tolkien went up to Oxford Universtiy to attend Exter College. He was highly social and studied languages. One langugage he never fully learned was Finnish. Despite that fact, during his college years, he started building a language based off Finnish. This language would become Quenya, an Elven tounge spoken in his fantasy world,Middle Earth. He also read and wrote alot of poetry which would later inspire his works.
Once Tolkien turned 21, he reconnected with Edith. When he found her, she was engaged to another man. He then was able to convince Edith to break off that engagment and become engaged to him instead. She converted to Catholcism and began wedding preperations.
Soon, World War 1 started. Tolkien signed up in a program which would allow him to train with the army while studying, but would not acutally be enlisted until his graduation.Also, at this point in time,he wrote more poetry and started to form his mythology that would become Middle Earth. He became a 2nd Leuitenant in the 13th Battillon of the Lancashire Fuisilers. He was named the Battillon's Signalling Officer. On March 22nd, Tolkien and Edith were married. On June 4th, Tolkien was shipped off to France.He was transfered to the 11th Battillon and was eventually sent home due to shell shock. During his stay at home, Tolkien began writing The Sillmarillon, a work outlining the early mythology and history of Middle Earth. The work would be published until 4 years after his death.He was constatnly ill, so he was kept on leave after that. He also continued to work on Middle Earth, for he had a desire to create an English mythology.In 1917, he wrote and published Fall of Gondolin, the first published work of Middle Earth. He also had finished the construction of the language of Quenya and begun on a second Elven language, Sindarian.Finally, his son John Francis was born.
After the war ended, he was on the staff of the New English Dictionary and a freelance tutor at Oxford. He also lectured at Leeds University and tuaght courses in linguistics.1920 brought the birth of his second son, Micheal Hilary. In 1924, he became a full professor, and a father agian with the birth of his third son, Chirstopher and in 1929, he moved to Oxford.Also in 1929,his fourth child and only duaghter, Priscilla was born. He was a very passionate professor. Students often thought him mad while lecturing. Also, the Universtiy lecutre courses required 36 lectures a year. Tolkien felt that the study of linguistics required 136 lectures to properly cover it. All this time, he was writing poetry and scholorly articles about Beowulf and other classics which inspired him. He particularly enjoyed old English literature.
Tolkien was freinds with another famous author, CS Lewis. Lewis was an agnostic while Tolkien was a devout Catholic. Through many theological debates and arguments, Lewis converted to Christiantiy. They had a close freindship that had it's ups and downs. Both Lewis and Tolkien were part of a literary society called The Inklings. There, a group of literary scholars and writers would meet to discuss writings, wether it be published works or pieces they themselves were currently writting.
Between the 20s and the 30s, Tolkien mainly wrote children's stories and epic poems such as The Gest of Beren and Luthien, which were thousands of vereses long. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil was published in the Oxford Magazine in 1934. Three years later, Tolkien published a children's novel called The Hobbit.It was inspired by a random sentence he wrote on a piece of paper 'In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.' At the time he didn't know what a hobbit was, but it was the birth of a great story. It was published in England on September 21st,1937.It did quite well. It then was exported to America in 1938. It was well recieved there, as well. It also recieved the New York Harold and Tribune's award for Best Juvinille Book of the Year.
After the sucess of The Hobbit, Tolkien tried peddling some of his other stories to his publishers. They were about Middle Earth, but more about the Elves. The publishers, however, wanted more hobbits. So Tolkien thought and decided to base a story off of the ring Bilbo Baggins found on his adventures during The Hobbit.
World War 2 came along, and his sons went off to war. Tolkien stayed behind and became Air Raid Warden. In 1945, Tolkien became a Merton Professor of English. He continued to teach and write.A certain story, however, was still being worked on. He constantly tweaked it and worked on it. He even worked on a set of appendices to give more insight on the cultures and history of Middle Earth.He often would get stuck and stop writing for months at a time. Finally, after years and years of work, the Lord of the Rings was published in 3 installments. In 1954, all 3 books were published months apart. A year later, the books were published with the appendices added on.
In 1959, Tolkien retired.He was elected ino an Honorary Fellowship by Exter College and an Emeritus Fellowship by Merton College.On November 22nd 1963, Lewis passed away. Tolkien was saddned greatly by his death. He spent the next years caring for his sick wife, Edith. She passed away in 1971 with an inflammed galbladder. In 1972, Tolkien was granted the honor of being named a Doctor of Letters at Oxford for pilology. On August 31st, 1973, he was diagnosed with an acute bleeding gastric ulcer. He later developed a chest infection and died on September 2nd of that year.His son, Christopher, continued after his father's death to edit and publish his father's works, such as The Sillmarillon and the Book of Lost Tales. Sometime next year, in 2007, a new J.R.R. Tolkien book will be published called the Children of Hurin.