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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfountein, South Africa, on January 3. 1892, by Mabel Tolkien, wife of Arthur Tolkien, both britsih emigrants, searching for å new start in another country. After Arthur died in 1896, the rest of the Tolkien family, Mabel, John and Hilary, John's brother, moved to Birmingham in the UK, since they had nothing left to live for in South Africa. And it was here, in his early years, that Tolkien's
curiosity
and taste for the adventural and fairy-like was developed. Along with his brother, the young boy would spend hours in a small forest near their home, imagining elves and dwarves and other fantastical creatures. Later, the family moved to different places, all within Birmingham, and when their mother died in 1904, it doesn't take all that long until Father Francis Xavier Morgan, a good friend of the family, claimed the responsibility for the two boys. This period, though, doesn't really seem to have left much impression on John, as he claimed he couldn't even make out how the house had looked.
When John was 16, he met and fell in love with Edith Bratt, who was three years his senior. But their relationship was effectively stopped by Father Francis, who sent the two brothers away to another address. By this time, John had attended different schools, but it had been the time and King Edward's School that had further developed John's taste for fantasy.
Then, in 1908, Tolkien moved to Oxford, a town in which he would spend almost 60 years of his life. He went to Exeter College, where he studied English and Literature, before he was sent to fight in the World War 1 in 1915. Before he is sent to the front, however, he marries Edith Bratt, on March 22. 1916. Not long after, John is commanded out to the front lines to fight in the war, but is soon returned home to England, suffering from shellshock, something that is probably on of the luckiest moments of his life, at least by though of his later writing career. After being claimed well from the shock, John did his service during the war by training other soldiers as a lieutenant in england.
In 1920, John becomes a teacher by the University of Leeds, after having his second son with Edith. The son is called Michael, their first son is named John after his father. In 1925, the Tolkiens move back to Oxford, when John gets a job there at Pembridge College. At this point of his life, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien had lived in 15 different places in England. But it seemed as if the Tolkiens finally, at least had settled for good in one town, if not steadily in one address, and it was here in Oxford, that John met Clive Staples Lewis, inventor of the Narnia-books, and they soon entered into a lifelong friendship. They served each other as friends and critics and inspired each other when it came to writing books.
In 1929, Edith got pregnant again, for the fourth time. Before that, they had had another son, Christopher. This time, though, it became a daughter, and both John and Edith were happy, after having three sons. They named their newborn Priscilla, and together with her elder brothers, young Pricilla demanded from her father goodnight stories. Thus were born "The Hobbit: Or there and back again," the book that would become his first success. The book was published in 1936.
In 1948, "The Lord of the Rings" was finished, after many years of work by John, but it lasted until 1954 that the two first books of the triology was published; "The fellowship of the ring" and "Two Towers." The following year, "The Return of the king" is published and "The Lord of the rings" completed. During the following years, John worked on several different book-projects, but don't manage to finish his work on the "Silmarillion," a supplement for the world of Middle-Earth. But several other books are published; "Giles farmer of Ham," "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil," and "Tree and leaf," among others.
In 1971, Edith Bratt dies after a short period of illness, and two years later,
in
1973,
John dies too, 81 years of age. The "Beren and Luthien" of our world were dead. |
