JRR Tolkien

(1892-1973)

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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born of January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa to parents Arthur and Mabel Tolkien. Notwithstanding his place of birth, Tolkein was a pure Englishman. While in South Africa, he supposedly had some sort of encounter with a large and hairy spider, which seems to have influenced his writing to some degree (Shelob, Spiders of Mirkwood, Ungoliant). In 1895, he moved to England with his mother, after the death of his father. He attended King Edwards Grammer School.

In 1904, Tolkien's mother died, and Tolkien and his siblings went to live at their aunt's house, in Birmingham. He attends Oxford University, and at graduation he is awarded the First Class Honours Degree in English and Literature. In 1915, he joins the British Army, and is assigned to the Lancashire Fusiliers. Before going to war in France, he marries Edith Bratt. He departs for France.

Tolkien fights in Somme as a Second Lieutenant, but is sent home after suffering from Shell Shock. He is later promoted, but remains in Britian.

In 1917 his first son, John Tolkien, is born. He starts writing what has become The Silmarillion. He goes to work at Oxford, in 1918, and works on the New English Dictionary. In 1920 Tolkine was hired as Reader of English Language at Leeds University. He has another son, named Micheal Tolkien.

In 1924, Tolkien is Proffesor of Anglo Saxon at Leeds University, and his third son, Christopher, who later published many of his father's early drafts and notes, was born. Tolkien's book, Sir Gawian and the Green Knight is published in 1925, and Tolkien becomes Proffesor of Anglo Saxon at Oxford.

In 1929, Priscilla, his fourth child, is born. Later, in 1936, Tolkien completed his book The Hobbit, and gave his esteemed "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" lecture. Eight years after it's completion, in 1937, The Hobbit is published, and Tolkien begins work on The Lord of the Rings.

In 1948, he completes The Lord of the Rings, and in 1949 his wimsical Farmer Giles of Ham is published. Then in 1954 the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, are published, and in 1955 the third volume, The Return of the King, is published. In 1962, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is published and in 1964 Tree and Leaf is published.

LOTR begins to gain popularity amoung young college students. Tolkien disaproves of Lord of the Rings cults.

In 1967 Smith of Wootton Major is published, as well as The Road Goes Ever On. In 1968 Tolkien moves to Poole with his wife and children, and in 1971 his wife dies, at the age of 82. Tolkien was awarded the title Commander of the Brittish Empire by the Queen. On September 2, 1973, JRR Tolkien dies at the age of 81.

Tolkien fancied his wife, Edith, as his Luthien, and himself as Beren, as indicated by the inscription on his grave.