JRR Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 at Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State .His mother, Mary Suffield, took him together with his
younger brother Hilary back to England 4 years later. And after his father died they settled themselves at Sarehole ,on the south-eastern edge of Birmingham.
Tolkien spent a happy childhood in the Sarehole countryside, and his love to the landscape can be seen both in his writings and in his drawings .When Tolkien was 12 his mother died as well ,he and Hilary became wards of a kindly priest at the Birmingham Oratory. They both attended Kind Edward's school ,Birmingham, where Tolkien achieved great distinction in Classics, and also encountered Anglo-Saxon and Middle English .Around this time he started to invent languages which he related to fairies or 'elvish' people.

After taking a First in English Language and Literature at Exeter College, Oxford, Tolkien married Edith Bratt .He was also commissioned in the Lancashire Fusiliers and served in the battle of Somme, where two of his three closest friends were killed .

After the war, he obtained a post on the New English Dictionary, and began to write the mythological and and legendary cycle which he originally called "The Book of Lost Tales" but which eventually became known as The Silmarillion .

Tolkien was appointed as Reader in the English Language in 1920 at the University of Leeds, a post that was converted to a Professorship four years later. He distuinguished himself by his lively and imaginative teaching ,and in 1925 was elected Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, where he worked with great skill and enthusiasm for many years. Indeed he was one of the most accomplished philologists that has ever been known .In the meanwhile, his family ,now numbering four children, encouraged Tolkien to use his mythological imagination to deal with more homely topics. For them he wrote and illustrated "The Father Christmas Letters" ,and to them he told the story of "The Hobbit" published some years later in 1937 by Stanley Unwin, who then asked for a 'sequel' .At first,Tolkien applied himself only unwillingly to this task, but soon he was inspired, and what meant to be another book for children grew into "The Lord of the Rings", truly a sequel to the "Silmarillion" than to "the Hobbit". The first book :"The Fellowship of the Ring" got published after some struggle on 29 July 1954 . Tolkien published the second book on 11 November 1954 and the third came on 20 October 1955 .All together these books took 12 years to complete .When it got published ,its extraordinary popularity took Tolkien by surprise .

After retirement, Tolkien and his wife lived first in the Headington area of Oxford, then moved to Bournemouth ,but after his wife died in 1971,Tolkien returned to Oxford and died after a very brief illness on 2nd September 1973, leaving his great mythological van legendary cycle "The Silmarillion" to be edited for publication by his son ,Christopher Tolkien.

Grave Inscription :

EDITH MARY TOLKIEN LUTHIEN 1889 - 1971

JOHN RONALD REUEL TOLKIEN BEREN 1892 - 1973