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J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL (/ˈrl ˈtɒlkn/, ROOL TOL-keen;[a] 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Tolkien in the 1920s
BornJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien
(1892-01-03)3 January 1892
Bloemfontein, Orange Free State
Died2 September 1973(1973-09-02) (aged 81)
Bournemouth, Hampshire, England
Occupation
Alma materExeter College, Oxford
Genre
Spouse
(m. 1916; died 1971)
Children
RelativesTolkien family
Signature
Military career
AllegianceKing George V
BranchBritish Army
Years1915–1920
RankLieutenant
UnitLancashire Fusiliers
Battles

From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, and held these positions from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the informal literary discussion group The Inklings. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.

After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and, within it, Middle-earth. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings.

While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused him to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy.

Biography

Ancestry

Tolkien's immediate paternal ancestors were middle-class craftsmen who made and sold clocks, watches and pianos in London and Birmingham. The Tolkien family originated in the East Prussian town of Kreuzburg near Königsberg, which had been founded during medieval German eastward expansion, where his earliest-known paternal ancestor Michel Tolkien was born around 1620. Michel's son Christianus Tolkien (1663–1746) was a wealthy miller in Kreuzburg.[3]

His son, Christian Tolkien (1706–1791), moved from Kreuzburg to nearby Danzig, and his two sons Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien (1747–1813) and Johann (later known as John) Benjamin Tolkien (1752–1819) emigrated to London in the 1770s and became the ancestors of the English family; the younger brother was J. R. R. Tolkien's second great-grandfather. In 1792, John Benjamin Tolkien and William Gravell took over the Erdley Norton manufacture in London, which from then on sold clocks and watches under the name Gravell & Tolkien. Daniel Gottlieb obtained British citizenship in 1794, but John Benjamin apparently never became a British citizen. Other German relatives also joined the two brothers in London. Several people with the surname Tolkien or similar spelling, some of them members of the same family as J. R. R. Tolkien, live in northern Germany, but most of them are descendants of people who evacuated East Prussia in 1945, at the end of World War II.[4][3][5]

According to Ryszard Derdziński, the Tolkien name is of Low Prussian origin and probably means "son/descendant of Tolk".[4][3] Tolkien mistakenly believed his surname derived from the German word tollkühn, meaning "foolhardy",[6] and jokingly inserted himself as a "cameo" into The Notion Club Papers under the literally translated name Rashbold.[7] However, Derdziński has demonstrated this to be a false etymology. While J. R. R. Tolkien was aware of his family's German origin, his knowledge of the family's history was limited because he was "early isolated from the family of his prematurely deceased father".[4][3]

Childhood

 
1892 Christmas card with a coloured photo of the Tolkien family in Bloemfontein, sent to relatives in Birmingham, England

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (later annexed by the British Empire; now Free State Province in the Republic of South Africa), to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien, who was born on 17 February 1894.[8]

As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the garden, an event some believe to have been later echoed in his stories, although he admitted no actual memory of the event and no special hatred of spiders as an adult. In an earlier incident from Tolkien's infancy, a young family servant took the baby to his homestead, returning him the next morning.[9]

When he was three, he went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them.[10] This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath,[11] Birmingham. Soon after, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham.[12] He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent, Lickey and Malvern Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books, along with nearby towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester, and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane's farm Bag End, the name of which he used in his fiction.[13]

 
Birmingham Oratory, where Tolkien was a parishioner and altar boy (1902–1911)

Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home. Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil.[14] She taught him a great deal of botany and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early.[15]

Tolkien could read by the age of four and could write fluently soon afterwards. His mother allowed him to read many books. He disliked Treasure Island and "The Pied Piper" and thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was "amusing but disturbing". He liked stories about "Red Indians" (Native Americans) and works of fantasy by George MacDonald.[16] In addition, the "Fairy Books" of Andrew Lang were particularly important to him and their influence is apparent in some of his later writings.[17]

 
King Edward's School in Birmingham, where Tolkien was a pupil (1900–1902, 1903–1911)[18]

Mabel Tolkien was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1900 despite vehement protests by her Baptist family,[19] which stopped all financial assistance to her. In 1904, when J. R. R. Tolkien was 12, his mother died of acute diabetes at Fern Cottage in Rednal, which she was renting. She was then about 34 years of age, about as old as a person with diabetes mellitus type 1 could survive without treatment—insulin would not be discovered until 1921, two decades later. Nine years after her death, Tolkien wrote, "My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith."[19]

Before her death, Mabel Tolkien had assigned the guardianship of her sons to her close friend, Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, who was assigned to bring them up as good Catholics.[20] In a 1965 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled the influence of the man whom he always called "Father Francis": "He was an upper-class Welsh-Spaniard Tory, and seemed to some just a pottering old gossip. He was—and he was not. I first learned charity and forgiveness from him; and in the light of it pierced even the 'liberal' darkness out of which I came, knowing more about 'Bloody Mary' than the Mother of Jesus—who was never mentioned except as an object of wicked worship by the Romanists."[T 1] After his mother's death, Tolkien grew up in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham and attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, and later St Philip's School. In 1903, he won a Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward's.[21]

Youth

While in his early teens, Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language, Animalic, an invention of his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was studying Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in Animalic soon died away, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh. The next constructed language he came to work with, Naffarin, would be his own creation.[22][23] Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909. Around 10 June 1909 he composed "The Book of the Foxrook", a sixteen-page notebook, where the "earliest example of one of his invented alphabets" appears.[24] Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto.[25]

In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith, and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S. The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, secretly, in the school library.[26][27] After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a council in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry.[citation needed]

In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter,[T 2] noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Mürren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, "the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams". They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass, through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt.[28]

In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially read classics but changed his course in 1913 to English language and literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours.[29] Among his tutors at Oxford was Joseph Wright, whose Primer of the Gothic Language had inspired Tolkien as a schoolboy.[30]

Courtship and marriage

At the age of 16, Tolkien met Edith Mary Bratt, who was three years his senior, when he and his brother Hilary moved into the boarding house where she lived in Duchess Road, Edgbaston. According to Humphrey Carpenter, "Edith and Ronald took to frequenting Birmingham teashops, especially one which had a balcony overlooking the pavement. There they would sit and throw sugarlumps into the hats of passers-by, moving to the next table when the sugar bowl was empty. ... With two people of their personalities and in their position, romance was bound to flourish. Both were orphans in need of affection, and they found that they could give it to each other. During the summer of 1909, they decided that they were in love."[31]

His guardian, Father Morgan, considered it "altogether unfortunate"[T 3] that his surrogate son was romantically involved with an older, Protestant woman; Tolkien wrote that the combined tensions contributed to his having "muffed [his] exams".[T 3] Morgan prohibited him from meeting, talking to, or even corresponding with Edith until he was 21. Tolkien obeyed this prohibition to the letter,[32] with one notable early exception, over which Father Morgan threatened to cut short his university career if he did not stop.[33]

On the evening of his 21st birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith, who was living with family friend C. H. Jessop at Cheltenham. He declared that he had never ceased to love her, and asked her to marry him. Edith replied that she had already accepted the proposal of George Field, the brother of one of her closest school friends. But Edith said she had agreed to marry Field only because she felt "on the shelf" and had begun to doubt that Tolkien still cared for her. She explained that, because of Tolkien's letter, everything had changed.[34]

On 8 January 1913, Tolkien travelled by train to Cheltenham and was met on the platform by Edith. The two took a walk into the countryside, sat under a railway viaduct, and talked. By the end of the day, Edith had agreed to accept Tolkien's proposal. She wrote to Field and returned her engagement ring. Field was "dreadfully upset at first", and the Field family was "insulted and angry".[34] Upon learning of Edith's new plans, Jessop wrote to her guardian, "I have nothing to say against Tolkien, he is a cultured gentleman, but his prospects are poor in the extreme, and when he will be in a position to marry I cannot imagine. Had he adopted a profession it would have been different."[35]

Following their engagement, Edith reluctantly announced that she was converting to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence. Jessop, "like many others of his age and class ... strongly anti-Catholic", was infuriated, and he ordered Edith to find other lodgings.[36]

Edith Bratt and Ronald Tolkien were formally engaged at Birmingham in January 1913, and married at St Mary Immaculate Catholic Church at Warwick, on 22 March 1916.[37] In his 1941 letter to Michael, Tolkien expressed admiration for his wife's willingness to marry a man with no job, little money, and no prospects except the likelihood of being killed in the Great War.[T 3]

First World War

In August 1914, Britain entered the First World War. Tolkien's relatives were shocked when he elected not to volunteer immediately for the British Army. In a 1941 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled: "In those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage."[T 3] Instead, Tolkien, "endured the obloquy",[T 3] and entered a programme by which he delayed enlistment until completing his degree. By the time he passed his finals in July 1915, Tolkien recalled that the hints were "becoming outspoken from relatives".[T 3] He was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers on 15 July 1915.[38][39] He trained with the 13th (Reserve) Battalion on Cannock Chase, Rugeley Camp near to Rugeley, Staffordshire, for 11 months. In a letter to Edith, Tolkien complained: "Gentlemen are rare among the superiors, and even human beings rare indeed."[40] Following their wedding, Lieutenant and Mrs. Tolkien took up lodgings near the training camp.[38] On 2 June 1916, Tolkien received a telegram summoning him to Folkestone for posting to France. The Tolkiens spent the night before his departure in a room at the Plough & Harrow Hotel in Edgbaston, Birmingham.[41] He later wrote: "Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute. Parting from my wife then... it was like a death."[42]

France

On 5 June 1916, Tolkien boarded a troop transport for an overnight voyage to Calais. Like other soldiers arriving for the first time, he was sent to the British Expeditionary Force's (BEF) base depot at Étaples. On 7 June, he was informed that he had been assigned as a signals officer to the 11th (Service) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. The battalion was part of the 74th Brigade, 25th Division. While waiting to be summoned to his unit, Tolkien sank into boredom. To pass the time, he composed a poem entitled The Lonely Isle, which was inspired by his feelings during the sea crossing to Calais. To evade the British Army's postal censorship, he developed a code of dots by which Edith could track his movements.[43] He left Étaples on 27 June 1916 and joined his battalion at Rubempré, near Amiens.[44] He found himself commanding enlisted men who were drawn mainly from the mining, milling, and weaving towns of Lancashire.[45] According to John Garth, he "felt an affinity for these working class men", but military protocol prohibited friendships with "other ranks". Instead, he was required to "take charge of them, discipline them, train them, and probably censor their letters ... If possible, he was supposed to inspire their love and loyalty."[46] Tolkien later lamented, "The most improper job of any man ... is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity."[46]

Battle of the Somme

 
The Schwaben Redoubt, painting by William Orpen. Imperial War Museum, London

Tolkien arrived at the Somme in early July 1916. In between terms behind the lines at Bouzincourt, he participated in the assaults on the Schwaben Redoubt and the Leipzig salient. Tolkien's time in combat was a terrible stress for Edith, who feared that every knock on the door might carry news of her husband's death. Edith could track her husband's movements on a map of the Western Front. The Reverend Mervyn S. Evers, Anglican chaplain to the Lancashire Fusiliers, recorded that Tolkien and his fellow officers were eaten by "hordes of lice" which found the Medical Officer's ointment merely "a kind of hors d'oeuvre and the little beggars went at their feast with renewed vigour."[47] On 27 October 1916, as his battalion attacked Regina Trench, Tolkien contracted trench fever, a disease carried by lice. He was invalided to England on 8 November 1916.[48] Many of his dearest school friends were killed in the war. Among their number were Rob Gilson of the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, who was killed on the first day of the Somme while leading his men in the assault on Beaumont Hamel. Fellow T.C.B.S. member Geoffrey Smith was killed during the battle, when a German artillery shell landed on a first-aid post. Tolkien's battalion was almost completely wiped out following his return to England.[49]

 
Men of the 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers in a communication trench near Beaumont Hamel, 1916. Photo by Ernest Brooks

According to John Garth, Kitchener's Army, in which Tolkien served, at once marked existing social boundaries and counteracted the class system by throwing everyone into a desperate situation together. Tolkien was grateful, writing that it had taught him "a deep sympathy and feeling for the Tommy; especially the plain soldier from the agricultural counties".[50]

Home front

A weak and emaciated Tolkien spent the remainder of the war alternating between hospitals and garrison duties, being deemed medically unfit for general service.[51][52][53] During his recovery in a cottage in Little Haywood, Staffordshire, he began to work on what he called The Book of Lost Tales, beginning with The Fall of Gondolin. Lost Tales represented Tolkien's attempt to create a mythology for England, a project he would abandon without ever completing.[54] Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps. It was at this time that Edith bore their first child, John Francis Reuel Tolkien. In a 1941 letter, Tolkien described his son John as "(conceived and carried during the starvation-year of 1917 and the great U-Boat campaign) round about the Battle of Cambrai, when the end of the war seemed as far off as it does now".[T 3] Tolkien was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant on 6 January 1918.[55] When he was stationed at Kingston upon Hull, he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and Edith began to dance for him in a clearing among the flowering hemlock. After his wife's death in 1971, Tolkien remembered,[T 4]

I never called Edith Luthien—but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief part of the Silmarillion. It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks[56] at Roos in Yorkshire (where I was for a brief time in command of an outpost of the Humber Garrison in 1917, and she was able to live with me for a while). In those days her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing—and dance. But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos.[T 4]

On 16 July 1919 Tolkien was taken off active service, at Fovant, on Salisbury Plain, with a temporary disability pension.[57]

Academic and writing career

 
2 Darnley Road, the former home of Tolkien in West Park, Leeds
 
20 Northmoor Road, one of Tolkien's former homes in Oxford

On 3 November 1920, Tolkien was demobilized and left the army, retaining his rank of lieutenant.[58] His first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W.[59] In 1920, he took up a post as reader in English language at the University of Leeds, becoming the youngest member of the academic staff there.[60] While at Leeds, he produced A Middle English Vocabulary and a definitive edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with E. V. Gordon; both became academic standard works for several decades. He translated Sir Gawain, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. In 1925, he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College.[citation needed]

In mid-1919, he began to tutor undergraduates privately, most importantly those of Lady Margaret Hall and St Hugh's College, given that the women's colleges were in great need of good teachers in their early years, and Tolkien as a married professor (then still not common) was considered suitable, as a bachelor don would not have been.[61]

During his time at Pembroke College Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, while living at 20 Northmoor Road in North Oxford. He also published a philological essay in 1932 on the name "Nodens", following Sir Mortimer Wheeler's unearthing of a Roman Asclepeion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928.[62]

Beowulf

In the 1920s, Tolkien undertook a translation of Beowulf, which he finished in 1926, but did not publish. It was finally edited by his son and published in 2014, more than 40 years after Tolkien's death and almost 90 years after its completion.[63]

Ten years after finishing his translation, Tolkien gave a highly acclaimed lecture on the work, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics", which had a lasting influence on Beowulf research.[64] Lewis E. Nicholson said that the article is "widely recognized as a turning point in Beowulfian criticism", noting that Tolkien established the primacy of the poetic nature of the work as opposed to its purely linguistic elements.[65] At the time, the consensus of scholarship deprecated Beowulf for dealing with childish battles with monsters rather than realistic tribal warfare; Tolkien argued that the author of Beowulf was addressing human destiny in general, not as limited by particular tribal politics, and therefore the monsters were essential to the poem.[66] Where Beowulf does deal with specific tribal struggles, as at Finnsburg, Tolkien argued firmly against reading in fantastic elements.[67] In the essay, Tolkien also revealed how highly he regarded Beowulf: "Beowulf is among my most valued sources"; this influence may be seen throughout his Middle-earth legendarium.[68]

According to Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien began his series of lectures on Beowulf in a most striking way, entering the room silently, fixing the audience with a look, and suddenly declaiming in Old English the opening lines of the poem, starting "with a great cry of Hwæt!" It was a dramatic impersonation of an Anglo-Saxon bard in a mead hall, and it made the students realize that Beowulf was not just a set text but "a powerful piece of dramatic poetry".[69] Decades later, W. H. Auden wrote to his former professor, thanking him for the "unforgettable experience" of hearing him recite Beowulf, and stating "The voice was the voice of Gandalf".[69]

Second World War

 
Merton College, where Tolkien was Professor of English Language and Literature (1945–1959)

In the run-up to the Second World War, Tolkien was earmarked as a codebreaker. In January 1939, he was asked to serve in the cryptographic department of the Foreign Office in the event of national emergency. Beginning on 27 March, he took an instructional course at the London HQ of the Government Code and Cypher School. He was informed in October that his services would not be required.[T 5][70]

In 1945, Tolkien moved to Merton College, Oxford, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature,[71] in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. He served as an external examiner for University College, Galway (now NUI Galway), for many years.[72] In 1954 Tolkien received an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland (of which University College, Galway, was a constituent college).[73] Tolkien completed The Lord of the Rings in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches.[74]

Family

The Tolkiens had four children: John Francis Reuel Tolkien (17 November 1917 – 22 January 2003), Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien (22 October 1920 – 27 February 1984), Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) and Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien (18 June 1929 – 28 February 2022).[75][76] Tolkien was very devoted to his children and sent them illustrated letters from Father Christmas when they were young.[77]

Retirement

 
Bust of Tolkien in the chapel of Exeter College, Oxford

During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien received steadily increasing public attention and literary fame. In 1961, his friend C. S. Lewis even nominated him for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[78] The sales of his books were so profitable that he regretted that he had not chosen early retirement.[15] In a 1972 letter, he deplored having become a cult-figure, but admitted that "even the nose of a very modest idol ... cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!"[T 6]

Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory,[T 7] and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth, which was then a seaside resort patronized by the British upper middle class. Tolkien's status as a best-selling author gave them easy entry into polite society, but Tolkien deeply missed the company of his fellow Inklings. Edith, however, was overjoyed to step into the role of a society hostess, which had been the reason that Tolkien selected Bournemouth in the first place. The genuine and deep affection between Ronald and Edith was demonstrated by their care about the other's health, in details like wrapping presents, in the generous way he gave up his life at Oxford so she could retire to Bournemouth, and in her pride in his becoming a famous author. They were tied together, too, by love for their children and grandchildren.[79]

In his retirement Tolkien was a consultant and translator for The Jerusalem Bible, published in 1966. He was initially assigned a larger portion to translate, but, due to other commitments, only managed to offer some criticisms of other contributors and a translation of the Book of Jonah.[T 8]

Final years

 
The grave of J. R. R. and Edith Tolkien, Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford

Edith died on 29 November 1971, at the age of 82. Ronald returned to Oxford, where Merton College gave him convenient rooms near the High Street. He missed Edith, but enjoyed being back in the city.[80]

Tolkien was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1972 New Year Honours[81] and received the insignia of the Order at Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1972.[T 9] In the same year Oxford University gave him an honorary Doctorate of Letters.[29][82]

He had the name Luthien [sic] engraved on Edith's tombstone at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When Tolkien died 21 months later on 2 September 1973 from a bleeding ulcer and chest infection,[83] at the age of 81,[84] he was buried in the same grave, with "Beren" added to his name. Tolkien's will was proven on 20 December 1973, with his estate valued at £190,577 (equivalent to £2,452,000 in 2021).[85][86]

Views

 
The Corner of the Eagle and Child Pub, Oxford, where the Inklings met (1930–1950)

Religion

Tolkien's Catholicism was a significant factor in C. S. Lewis's conversion from atheism to Christianity, although Tolkien was dismayed that Lewis chose to join the Church of England.[87] He once wrote to Rayner Unwin's daughter Camilla, who wished to know the purpose of life, that it was "to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks."[88] He had a special devotion to the blessed sacrament, writing to his son Michael that in "the Blessed Sacrament ... you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that".[T 3] He accordingly encouraged frequent reception of Holy Communion, again writing to his son Michael that "the only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion." He believed the Catholic Church to be true most of all because of the pride of place and the honour in which it holds the Blessed Sacrament.[T 10] In the last years of his life, Tolkien resisted the liturgical changes implemented after the Second Vatican Council, especially the use of English for the liturgy; he continued to make the responses in Latin, loudly, ignoring the rest of the congregation.[80]

Race

Tolkien's fantasy writings have often been accused of embodying outmoded attitudes to race.[89][90] However, scholars have noted that he was influenced by Victorian attitudes to race and to a literary tradition of monsters, and that he was anti-racist both in peacetime and during the two World Wars. With the late 19th century background of eugenics and a fear of moral decline, some critics saw the mention of race mixing in The Lord of the Rings as embodying scientific racism.[91] Other commentators saw in Tolkien's orcs a reflection of wartime propaganda caricatures of the Japanese.[92] Critics have noted, too, that the work embodies a moral geography, with good in the West, evil in the East.[93] Against this, scholars have noted that Tolkien was outraged in peacetime by Nazi racial theory, while during the Second World War he was equally disgusted by anti-German racial propaganda.[94][95] Other scholars have stated that Tolkien's Middle-earth is definitely polycultural and polylingual, and that attacks on Tolkien based on The Lord of the Rings often omit relevant evidence from the text.[96][97]

Nature

During most of his own life conservationism was not yet on the political agenda, and Tolkien himself did not directly express conservationist views—except in some private letters, in which he tells about his fondness for forests and sadness at tree-felling. In later years, a number of authors of biographies or literary analyses of Tolkien conclude that during his writing of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien gained increased interest in the value of wild and untamed nature, and in protecting what wild nature was left in the industrialized world.[98][99][100]

Writing

Influences

Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, drew on a wide array of influences including his philological interest in language,[101] Christianity,[102][103] mythology, archaeology,[104] ancient and modern literature, and personal experience. His philological work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and he acknowledged its importance to his writings.[105] He was a gifted linguist, influenced by Germanic,[106] Celtic,[107] Finnish,[108] and Greek[109][110] language and mythology. Commentators have attempted to identify many literary and topological antecedents for characters, places and events in Tolkien's writings. Some writers were important to him, including the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris,[111] and he undoubtedly made use of some real place-names, such as Bag End, the name of his aunt's home.[112] He acknowledged, too, John Buchan and H. Rider Haggard, authors of modern adventure stories that he enjoyed.[113][114][115] The effects of some specific experiences have been identified. Tolkien's childhood in the English countryside, and its urbanization by the growth of Birmingham, influenced his creation of the Shire,[116] while his personal experience of fighting in the trenches of the First World War affected his depiction of Mordor.[117]

Publications

"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"

In addition to writing fiction, Tolkien was an author of academic literary criticism. His seminal 1936 lecture, later published as an article, revolutionized the treatment of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf by literary critics. The essay remains highly influential in the study of Old English literature to this day.[118] Beowulf is one of the most significant influences upon Tolkien's later fiction, with major details of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings being adapted from the poem.[119]

"On Fairy-Stories"

This essay discusses the fairy-story as a literary form. It was initially written as the 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Tolkien focuses on Andrew Lang's work as a folklorist and collector of fairy tales. He disagreed with Lang's broad inclusion, in his Fairy Book collections, of traveller's tales, beast fables, and other types of stories. Tolkien held a narrower perspective, viewing fairy stories as those that took place in Faerie, an enchanted realm, with or without fairies as characters. He viewed them as the natural development of the interaction of human imagination and human language.[120]

Children's books and other short works

In addition to his mythopoeic compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children.[121] He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters).[122] Other works included Mr. Bliss and Roverandom (for children), and Leaf by Niggle (part of Tree and Leaf), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium.[123]

The Hobbit

Tolkien never expected his stories to become popular, but by sheer accident a book called The Hobbit, which he had written some years before for his own children, came in 1936 to the attention of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the London publishing firm George Allen & Unwin, who persuaded Tolkien to submit it for publication.[84] When it was published a year later, the book attracted adult readers as well as children, and it became popular enough for the publishers to ask Tolkien to produce a sequel.[124]

The Lord of the Rings

The request for a sequel prompted Tolkien to begin what became his most famous work: the epic novel The Lord of the Rings (originally published in three volumes in 1954–1955). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for The Lord of the Rings, during which time he received the constant support of the Inklings, in particular his closest friend C. S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion, but in a time long after it.[125]

Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings to be a children's tale in the style of The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing.[126] Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit, it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense backstory of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes.[125] Tolkien strongly influenced the fantasy genre that grew up after the book's success.[127]

The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the 20th century, judged by both sales and reader surveys.[128] In the 2003 "Big Read" survey conducted by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the UK's "Best-loved Novel".[129] Australians voted The Lord of the Rings "My Favourite Book" in a 2004 survey conducted by the Australian ABC.[130] In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium".[131] In 2002 Tolkien was voted the 92nd "greatest Briton" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted 35th in the SABC3's Great South Africans, the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK's "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings to be their favourite work of literature.[132]

The Silmarillion

Tolkien wrote a brief "Sketch of the Mythology", which included the tales of Beren and Lúthien and of Túrin; and that sketch eventually evolved into the Quenta Silmarillion, an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. Tolkien desperately hoped to publish it along with The Lord of the Rings, but publishers (both Allen & Unwin and Collins) declined. Moreover, printing costs were very high in 1950s Britain, requiring The Lord of the Rings to be published in three volumes.[133] The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle-earth, edited by Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien. From around 1936, Tolkien began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Númenor, which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis.[134]

Tolkien appointed his son Christopher to be his literary executor, and he (with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, later a well-known fantasy author in his own right) organized some of this material into a single coherent volume, published as The Silmarillion in 1977. It received the Locus Award for Best Fantasy novel in 1978.[135]

Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth

In 1980, Christopher Tolkien published a collection of more fragmentary material, under the title Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. In subsequent years (1983–1996), he published a large amount of the remaining unpublished materials, together with notes and extensive commentary, in a series of twelve volumes called The History of Middle-earth. They contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative, and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress for Tolkien and he only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not complete consistency between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the two most closely related works, because Tolkien never fully integrated all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing The Hobbit for a third edition, that he would have preferred to rewrite the book completely because of the style of its prose.[136]

Works compiled by Christopher Tolkien

Date Title Description
2007 The Children of Húrin tells the story of Túrin Turambar and his sister Nienor, children of Húrin Thalion.[137]
2009 The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún retells the legend of Sigurd and the fall of the Niflungs from Germanic mythology as a narrative poem in alliterative verse, modelled after the Old Norse poetry of the Elder Edda.[138]
2013 The Fall of Arthur is a narrative poem that Tolkien composed in the early 1930s, inspired by high medieval Arthurian fiction but set in the Post-Roman Migration Period, showing Arthur as a British warlord fighting the Saxon invasion.[139]
2014 Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary is a prose translation of Beowulf that Tolkien made in the 1920s, with commentary from Tolkien's lecture notes.[140][141]
2015 The Story of Kullervo is a retelling of a 19th-century Finnish poem that Tolkien wrote in 1915 while studying at Oxford.[142]
2017 Beren and Lúthien is one of the oldest and most often revised in Tolkien's legendarium; a version appeared in The Silmarillion.[143]
2018 The Fall of Gondolin tells of a beautiful, mysterious city destroyed by dark forces; Tolkien called it "the first real story" of Middle-earth.[144][145]

Manuscript locations

Before his death, Tolkien negotiated the sale of the manuscripts, drafts, proofs and other materials related to his then-published works—including The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Farmer Giles of Ham—to the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University's John P. Raynor, S.J., Library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[146] After his death his estate donated the papers containing Tolkien's Silmarillion mythology and his academic work to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.[147] The Bodleian Library held an exhibition of his work in 2018, including more than 60 items which had never been seen in public before.[148]

In 2009, a partial draft of Language and Human Nature, which Tolkien had begun co-writing with C. S. Lewis but had never completed, was discovered at the Bodleian Library.[149]

Languages and philology

Linguistic career

Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. He specialized in English philology at university and in 1915 graduated with Old Norse as his special subject. He worked on the Oxford English Dictionary from 1918 and is credited with having worked on a number of words starting with the letter W, including walrus, over which he struggled mightily.[150][151] In 1920, he became Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of linguistics from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English heroic verse, history of English, various Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. When in 1925, aged thirty-three, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a "Viking Club".[T 11] He also had a certain, if imperfect, knowledge of Finnish.[152]

Privately, Tolkien was attracted to "things of racial and linguistic significance", and in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, which is crucial to his understanding of race and language, he entertained notions of "inherent linguistic predilections", which he termed the "native language" as opposed to the "cradle-tongue" which a person first learns to speak.[153] He considered the West Midlands dialect of Middle English to be his own "native language", and, as he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955, "I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)."[T 12]

Language construction

 
Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind, long years numberless as the wings of trees!, the beginning of the Quenya poem Namárië written in Tengwar and in Latin script

Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for constructing languages. The most developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin, the etymological connection between which formed the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elven-latin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish, Welsh, English, and Greek.[T 13] An addition from late 1945 was Adûnaic or Númenórean, a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis legend, which by The Notion Club Papers ties directly into his ideas about the inability of language to be inherited, and via the "Second Age" and the story of Eärendil was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's 20th-century "real primary world" with the legendary past of his Middle-earth.[citation needed]

Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages: in 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture A Secret Vice,[154] "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he had concluded that "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends".[T 14]

The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's idiosyncratic spellings dwarves and dwarvish (alongside dwarfs and dwarfish), which had been little used since the mid-19th century and earlier. (In fact, according to Tolkien, had the Old English plural survived, it would have been dwarrows or dwerrows.) He also coined the term eucatastrophe, though it remains mainly used in connection with his own work.[citation needed]

Artwork

Tolkien learnt to paint and draw as a child, and continued to do so all his adult life. From early in his writing career, the development of his stories was accompanied by drawings and paintings, especially of landscapes, and by maps of the lands in which the tales were set. He also produced pictures to accompany the stories told to his own children, including those later published in Mr Bliss and Roverandom, and sent them elaborately illustrated letters purporting to come from Father Christmas. Although he regarded himself as an amateur, the publisher used the author's own cover art, his maps, and full-page illustrations for the early editions of The Hobbit. He prepared maps and illustrations for The Lord of the Rings, but the first edition contained only the maps, his calligraphy for the inscription on the One Ring, and his ink drawing of the Doors of Durin. Much of his artwork was collected and published in 1995 as a book: J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. The book discusses Tolkien's paintings, drawings, and sketches, and reproduces approximately 200 examples of his work.[155] Catherine McIlwaine curated a major exhibition of Tolkien's artwork at the Bodleian Library, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, accompanied by a book of the same name that analyses Tolkien's achievement and illustrates the full range of the types of artwork that he created.[156]

Legacy

Influence

While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence and the shaping of the modern fantasy genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature[157][158]—or, more precisely, of high fantasy,[159] as in the work of authors such as Ursula Le Guin and her Earthsea series.[160] In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".[161] His influence has extended to music, including the Danish group the Tolkien Ensemble's setting of all the poetry in The Lord of the Rings to their vocal music;[162] and to a broad range of games set in Middle-earth.[163]

Adaptations

In a 1951 letter to publisher Milton Waldman (1895–1976), Tolkien wrote about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which "[t]he cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama".[T 15] The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were Pauline Baynes (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Farmer Giles of Ham) and Donald Swann (who set the music to The Road Goes Ever On). Queen Margrethe II of Denmark created illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity they bore in style to his own drawings.[164] Tolkien was not implacably opposed to the idea of a dramatic adaptation, however, and sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968. United Artists never made a film, although director John Boorman was planning a live-action film in the early 1970s. In 1976, the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company, and the first film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was released in 1978 as an animated rotoscoping film directed by Ralph Bakshi with screenplay by the fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle. It covered only the first half of the story of The Lord of the Rings.[165]

In 1977, an animated musical television film of The Hobbit was made by Rankin-Bass, and in 1980, they produced the animated musical television film The Return of the King, which covered some of the portions of The Lord of the Rings that Bakshi was unable to complete. From 2001 to 2003, New Line Cinema released The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy of live-action films that were filmed in New Zealand and directed by Peter Jackson. The series was successful, performing extremely well commercially and winning numerous Oscars.[166] From 2012 to 2014, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema released The Hobbit, a series of three films based on The Hobbit, with Peter Jackson serving as executive producer, director, and co-writer.[167] The first instalment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, was released in December 2012;[168] the second, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, in December 2013;[169] and the last instalment, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, in December 2014.[170] In 2017, Amazon acquired the global television rights to The Lord of the Rings, for a series of new stories set before The Fellowship of the Ring.[171][172]

Memorials

Tolkien and the characters and places from his works have become eponyms of many real-world objects. These include geographical features on Titan (Saturn's largest moon),[173] street names such as There and Back Again Lane, inspired by The Hobbit,[174] mountains such as Mount Shadowfax, Mount Gandalf and Mount Aragorn in Canada,[175][176] companies such as Palantir Technologies,[177] and species including the wasp Shireplitis tolkieni,[178] 37 new species of Elachista moths,[178][179] and many fossils.[180][181][182]

Since 2003, The Tolkien Society has organized Tolkien Reading Day, which takes place on 25 March in schools around the world.[183] In 2013, Pembroke College, Oxford University, established an annual lecture on fantasy literature in Tolkien's honour.[184] In 2012, Tolkien was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover—to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admired.[185][186] A 2019 biographical film, Tolkien, focused on Tolkien's early life and war experiences.[187] The Tolkien family and estate stated that they did not "approve of, authorise or participate in the making of" the film.[188]

 
Sarehole Mill's blue plaque

Several blue plaques in England commemorate places associated with Tolkien, including for his childhood, his workplaces, and places he visited.[41][189][190]

Address Commemoration Date unveiled Issued by
Sarehole Mill, Hall Green, Birmingham "Inspired" 1896–1900 (i.e. lived nearby) 15 August 2002 Birmingham Civic Society and The Tolkien Society[191]
1 Duchess Place, Ladywood, Birmingham Lived near here 1902–1910 Unknown Birmingham Civic Society[192]
4 Highfield Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham Lived here 1910–1911 Unknown Birmingham Civic Society and The Tolkien Society[193]
Plough and Harrow, Hagley Road, Birmingham Stayed here June 1916 June 1997 The Tolkien Society[194]
2 Darnley Road, West Park, Leeds First academic appointment, Leeds 1 October 2012 The Tolkien Society and Leeds Civic Trust[195]
20 Northmoor Road, North Oxford Lived here 1930–1947 3 December 2002 Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board[196]
Hotel Miramar, East Overcliff Drive, Bournemouth Stayed here regularly from the 1950s until 1972 10 June 1992 by Priscilla Tolkien Borough of Bournemouth[197]

The Royal Mint is producing a commemorative £2 coin in 2023 to mark the 50th anniversary of Tolkien's death.[198]

Canonization process

On 2 September 2017, the Oxford Oratory, Tolkien's parish church during his time in Oxford, offered its first Mass for the intention of Tolkien's cause for beatification to be opened.[199][200] A prayer was written for his cause.[199]

Notes

  1. ^ Tolkien pronounced his surname /ˈtɒlkn/ TOL-keen.[1][page needed] In General American, the surname is commonly pronounced /ˈtlkn/ TOHL-keen.[2]

References

Primary

  1. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #267.
  2. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #306 to Michael Tolkien, 1967 or 1968
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #43 to Michael Tolkien, 6–8 March 1941
  4. ^ a b Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #340.
  5. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #35 (see also editorial note).
  6. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #336 to Sir Patrick Browne, 23 May 1972
  7. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #332 to Michael Tolkien, 24 January 1972
  8. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #294 to Charlotte and Denis Plimmer, 8 February 1967
  9. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #334 (editorial note).
  10. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #250 to Michael Tolkien, 1 November 1963
  11. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #7, to the Electors of the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford, 27 June 1925
  12. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #163.
  13. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #144.
  14. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #180.
  15. ^ Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #131

Secondary

  1. ^ Tolkien, Christopher, ed. (1988). The Return of the Shadow: The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part One. The History of Middle-earth. Vol. 6. ISBN 0-04-440162-0.
  2. ^ Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
  3. ^ a b c d Derdziński, Ryszard (2017). (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 January 2019.
  4. ^ a b c Derdziński, Ryszard. (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 January 2019.
  5. ^ . verwandt.de (in German). MyHeritage UK. Archived from the original on 10 May 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2012.
  6. ^ "Ash nazg gimbatul". Der Spiegel (in German). No. 35/1969. 25 August 1969. from the original on 27 April 2011. Professor Tolkien, der seinen Namen vom deutschen Wort 'tollkühn' ableitet,... .
  7. ^ Geier, Fabian (2009). J. R. R. Tolkien (in German). Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag. p. 9. ISBN 978-3-499-50664-2.
  8. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 14
  9. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 13 Both the spider incident and the visit to the homestead are covered here.
  10. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 24
  11. ^ Carpenter 1977, Ch I, "Bloemfontein". At 9 Ashfield Road, King's Heath.
  12. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 27
  13. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 113
  14. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 29
  15. ^ a b Doughan, David (2002). "JRR Tolkien Biography". Life of Tolkien. from the original on 3 March 2006.
  16. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 22
  17. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 30
  18. ^ Carpenter 1977, pp. 24–51
  19. ^ a b Carpenter 1977, p. 31
  20. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 39
  21. ^ Carpenter 1977, pp. 25–38
  22. ^ "Tolkien's Not-So-Secret Vice". from the original on 22 November 2012.
  23. ^ . Archived from the original on 24 December 2013.
  24. ^ Bramlett, Perry C. (2002). I Am in Fact a Hobbit: An Introduction to the Life and Works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Mercer University Press. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-86554-894-7. from the original on 15 February 2017. See also: Book of the Foxrook 2 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  25. ^ Smith, Arden R. (2006). "Esperanto". In Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment. Routledge. p. 172, and Book of the Foxrook 2 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine; transcription on Tolkien i Esperanto 19 October 2016 at the Wayback Machine; the text begins with "PRIVATA KODO SKAŬTA" (Private Scout Code)
  26. ^ Carpenter 1977, pp. 53–54
  27. ^ Tolkien and the Great War, p. 6.
  28. ^ "1911 – J. R. R. Tolkien besichtigt das Oberwallis". Valais Wallis Digital (in German). from the original on 5 March 2016. citing Carpenter & Tolkien 1981, Letters #306.
  29. ^ a b Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (26 February 2004). The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien Author and Illustrator. Royal Mail Group plc (commemorative postage stamp pack).
  30. ^ Carpenter 1977, pp. 45, 63–64
  31. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 40
  32. ^ Doughan, David (2002). "War, Lost Tales and Academia". J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch. from the original on 3 March 2006.
  33. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 43
  34. ^ a b Carpenter 1977, pp. 67–69
  35. ^ The Tolkien Family Album, (1992), p. 34.
  36. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 73
  37. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 86
  38. ^ a b Carpenter 1977, pp. 77–85
  39. ^ "No. 29232". The London Gazette. 16 July 1915. p. 6968.
  40. ^ Tolkien and the Great War, p. 94.
  41. ^ a b "Memorials". The Tolkien Society. 29 October 2016. from the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  42. ^ Garth 2003, p. 138
  43. ^ Garth 2003, pp. 144–145
  44. ^ Garth 2003, pp. 147–148
  45. ^ Garth 2003, pp. 148–149
  46. ^ a b Garth 2003, p. 149
  47. ^ Quoted in Garth 2003, p. 200
  48. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 93
  49. ^ Carpenter 1977, pp. 93, 103, 105
  50. ^ Garth 2003, pp. 94–95
  51. ^ Garth 2003, pp. 207 et seq.
  52. ^ Tolkien's Webley .455 service revolver was put on display in 2006 as part of a Battle of the Somme exhibition in the Imperial War Museum, London. (See "Second Lieutenant J R R Tolkien". Battle of the Somme. Imperial War Museum. from the original on 25 November 2018. and "Webley.455 Mark 6 (VI Military)". Imperial War Museum Collection Search. Imperial War Museum. from the original on 25 November 2018.)
  53. ^ Several of his service records, mostly dealing with his health problems, can be seen at the National Archives. (. First World War. National Archives. Archived from the original on 8 March 2009. Retrieved 2 December 2007.)
  54. ^ Carpenter 1977, p. 98
  55. ^ "No. 30588". The London Gazette (Supplement). 19 March 1918. p. 3561.
  56. ^ Following rural English usage, Tolkien used the name "hemlock" for various plants with white flowers in umbels, resembling hemlock (Conium maculatum); the flowers Edith danced among were more probably cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) or wild carrot (Daucus carota). See John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War (Harper Collins/Houghton Mifflin 2003, chapter 12), and Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, & Edmund Weiner, The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary (OUP 2006).
  57. ^ Grotta 2002, p. 58
  58. ^ "No. 32110". The London Gazette (Supplement). 2 November 1920. p. 10711.
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  75. ^ Lee 2020, pp. 12–15.
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  82. ^ Shropshire County Council (2002). . Literary Heritage, West Midlands. Archived from the original on 28 July 2012.
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  86. ^ "Tolkien, John Ronald Reul of Merton College Oxford". probatesearchservice.gov. UK Government. 1973. from the original on 22 May 2020.
  87. ^ Carpenter, Humphrey (1978). The Inklings. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-0-00-774869-3. Lewis was brought up in the Church of Ireland.
  88. ^ Ware, Jim (2006). Finding God in The Hobbit. p. xxii. ISBN 978-1-4143-0596-7.
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Sources

Further reading

A small selection of books about Tolkien and his works:

External links

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  • HarperCollins Tolkien Website
  • compiled by the Marion E. Wade Center
  • "Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31766. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • J. R. R. Tolkien at IMDb
  • J. R. R. Tolkien at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
  • Archival material at Leeds University Library
  • Audio recording of Tolkien from 1929 on a language learning gramophone disc
  • BBC film (1968) featuring Tolkien
  • Biography at the Tolkien Society
  • J. R. R. Tolkien at The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
  • at the Internet Book List
  • J. R. R. Tolkien at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
  • Journal of Inklings Studies—Peer-reviewed journal on Tolkien's literary circle, based at Oxford
  • The Tolkien Estate Website
  • Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
  • Works by J. R. R. Tolkien at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)  
  • Works by J. R. R. Tolkien at Project Gutenberg
  • Works by or about J. R. R. Tolkien at Internet Archive

tolkien, tolkien, redirects, here, other, uses, tolkien, disambiguation, john, ronald, reuel, tolkien, frsl, rool, keen, january, 1892, september, 1973, english, writer, philologist, author, high, fantasy, works, hobbit, lord, rings, frsltolkien, 1920sbornjohn. Tolkien redirects here For other uses see Tolkien disambiguation John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL ˈ r uː l ˈ t ɒ l k iː n ROOL TOL keen a 3 January 1892 2 September 1973 was an English writer and philologist He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings J R R TolkienCBE FRSLTolkien in the 1920sBornJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien 1892 01 03 3 January 1892Bloemfontein Orange Free StateDied2 September 1973 1973 09 02 aged 81 Bournemouth Hampshire EnglandOccupationAuthoracademicphilologistpoetAlma materExeter College OxfordGenreFantasyhigh fantasymythopoeiatranslationliterary criticismSpouseEdith Bratt m 1916 died 1971 wbr ChildrenJohn Francis Michael Hilary Christopher John Priscilla AnneRelativesTolkien familySignatureMilitary careerAllegianceKing George VBranchBritish ArmyYears1915 1920RankLieutenantUnitLancashire FusiliersBattlesWorld War I Battle of the Somme Capture of Schwaben Redoubt Capture of Leipzig Salient Capture of Regina Trench WIA From 1925 to 1945 Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College both at the University of Oxford He then moved within the same university to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College and held these positions from 1945 until his retirement in 1959 Tolkien was a close friend of C S Lewis a co member of the informal literary discussion group The Inklings He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972 After Tolkien s death his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father s extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts including The Silmarillion These together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings form a connected body of tales poems fictional histories invented languages and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and within it Middle earth Between 1951 and 1955 Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre This has caused him to be popularly identified as the father of modern fantasy literature or more precisely of high fantasy Contents 1 Biography 1 1 Ancestry 1 2 Childhood 1 3 Youth 1 4 Courtship and marriage 1 5 First World War 1 5 1 France 1 5 2 Battle of the Somme 1 5 3 Home front 1 6 Academic and writing career 1 6 1 Beowulf 1 6 2 Second World War 1 7 Family 1 8 Retirement 1 9 Final years 2 Views 2 1 Religion 2 2 Race 2 3 Nature 3 Writing 3 1 Influences 3 2 Publications 3 2 1 Beowulf The Monsters and the Critics 3 2 2 On Fairy Stories 3 2 3 Children s books and other short works 3 2 4 The Hobbit 3 2 5 The Lord of the Rings 3 2 6 The Silmarillion 3 2 7 Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle earth 3 2 8 Works compiled by Christopher Tolkien 3 3 Manuscript locations 4 Languages and philology 4 1 Linguistic career 4 2 Language construction 5 Artwork 6 Legacy 6 1 Influence 6 2 Adaptations 6 3 Memorials 6 4 Canonization process 7 Notes 8 References 8 1 Primary 8 2 Secondary 9 Sources 10 Further reading 11 External linksBiographyAncestry Main article Tolkien family Tolkien s immediate paternal ancestors were middle class craftsmen who made and sold clocks watches and pianos in London and Birmingham The Tolkien family originated in the East Prussian town of Kreuzburg near Konigsberg which had been founded during medieval German eastward expansion where his earliest known paternal ancestor Michel Tolkien was born around 1620 Michel s son Christianus Tolkien 1663 1746 was a wealthy miller in Kreuzburg 3 His son Christian Tolkien 1706 1791 moved from Kreuzburg to nearby Danzig and his two sons Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien 1747 1813 and Johann later known as John Benjamin Tolkien 1752 1819 emigrated to London in the 1770s and became the ancestors of the English family the younger brother was J R R Tolkien s second great grandfather In 1792 John Benjamin Tolkien and William Gravell took over the Erdley Norton manufacture in London which from then on sold clocks and watches under the name Gravell amp Tolkien Daniel Gottlieb obtained British citizenship in 1794 but John Benjamin apparently never became a British citizen Other German relatives also joined the two brothers in London Several people with the surname Tolkien or similar spelling some of them members of the same family as J R R Tolkien live in northern Germany but most of them are descendants of people who evacuated East Prussia in 1945 at the end of World War II 4 3 5 According to Ryszard Derdzinski the Tolkien name is of Low Prussian origin and probably means son descendant of Tolk 4 3 Tolkien mistakenly believed his surname derived from the German word tollkuhn meaning foolhardy 6 and jokingly inserted himself as a cameo into The Notion Club Papers under the literally translated name Rashbold 7 However Derdzinski has demonstrated this to be a false etymology While J R R Tolkien was aware of his family s German origin his knowledge of the family s history was limited because he was early isolated from the family of his prematurely deceased father 4 3 Childhood 1892 Christmas card with a coloured photo of the Tolkien family in Bloemfontein sent to relatives in Birmingham England John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State later annexed by the British Empire now Free State Province in the Republic of South Africa to Arthur Reuel Tolkien 1857 1896 an English bank manager and his wife Mabel nee Suffield 1870 1904 The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked Tolkien had one sibling his younger brother Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien who was born on 17 February 1894 8 As a child Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the garden an event some believe to have been later echoed in his stories although he admitted no actual memory of the event and no special hatred of spiders as an adult In an earlier incident from Tolkien s infancy a young family servant took the baby to his homestead returning him the next morning 9 When he was three he went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit His father however died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them 10 This left the family without an income so Tolkien s mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath 11 Birmingham Soon after in 1896 they moved to Sarehole now in Hall Green then a Worcestershire village later annexed to Birmingham 12 He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent Lickey and Malvern Hills which would later inspire scenes in his books along with nearby towns and villages such as Bromsgrove Alcester and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane s farm Bag End the name of which he used in his fiction 13 Birmingham Oratory where Tolkien was a parishioner and altar boy 1902 1911 Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home Ronald as he was known in the family was a keen pupil 14 She taught him a great deal of botany and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early 15 Tolkien could read by the age of four and could write fluently soon afterwards His mother allowed him to read many books He disliked Treasure Island and The Pied Piper and thought Alice s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was amusing but disturbing He liked stories about Red Indians Native Americans and works of fantasy by George MacDonald 16 In addition the Fairy Books of Andrew Lang were particularly important to him and their influence is apparent in some of his later writings 17 King Edward s School in Birmingham where Tolkien was a pupil 1900 1902 1903 1911 18 Mabel Tolkien was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1900 despite vehement protests by her Baptist family 19 which stopped all financial assistance to her In 1904 when J R R Tolkien was 12 his mother died of acute diabetes at Fern Cottage in Rednal which she was renting She was then about 34 years of age about as old as a person with diabetes mellitus type 1 could survive without treatment insulin would not be discovered until 1921 two decades later Nine years after her death Tolkien wrote My own dear mother was a martyr indeed and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith 19 Before her death Mabel Tolkien had assigned the guardianship of her sons to her close friend Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory who was assigned to bring them up as good Catholics 20 In a 1965 letter to his son Michael Tolkien recalled the influence of the man whom he always called Father Francis He was an upper class Welsh Spaniard Tory and seemed to some just a pottering old gossip He was and he was not I first learned charity and forgiveness from him and in the light of it pierced even the liberal darkness out of which I came knowing more about Bloody Mary than the Mother of Jesus who was never mentioned except as an object of wicked worship by the Romanists T 1 After his mother s death Tolkien grew up in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham and attended King Edward s School Birmingham and later St Philip s School In 1903 he won a Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward s 21 Youth While in his early teens Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language Animalic an invention of his cousins Mary and Marjorie Incledon At that time he was studying Latin and Anglo Saxon Their interest in Animalic soon died away but Mary and others including Tolkien himself invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh The next constructed language he came to work with Naffarin would be his own creation 22 23 Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909 Around 10 June 1909 he composed The Book of the Foxrook a sixteen page notebook where the earliest example of one of his invented alphabets appears 24 Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto 25 In 1911 while they were at King Edward s School Tolkien and three friends Rob Gilson Geoffrey Bache Smith and Christopher Wiseman formed a semi secret society they called the T C B S The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow s Stores near the school and secretly in the school library 26 27 After leaving school the members stayed in touch and in December 1914 they held a council in London at Wiseman s home For Tolkien the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry citation needed In 1911 Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter T 2 noting that Bilbo s journey across the Misty Mountains including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Murren Fifty seven years later Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn the Silvertine Celebdil of my dreams They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen They continued across the Grimsel Pass through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt 28 In October of the same year Tolkien began studying at Exeter College Oxford He initially read classics but changed his course in 1913 to English language and literature graduating in 1915 with first class honours 29 Among his tutors at Oxford was Joseph Wright whose Primer of the Gothic Language had inspired Tolkien as a schoolboy 30 Courtship and marriage At the age of 16 Tolkien met Edith Mary Bratt who was three years his senior when he and his brother Hilary moved into the boarding house where she lived in Duchess Road Edgbaston According to Humphrey Carpenter Edith and Ronald took to frequenting Birmingham teashops especially one which had a balcony overlooking the pavement There they would sit and throw sugarlumps into the hats of passers by moving to the next table when the sugar bowl was empty With two people of their personalities and in their position romance was bound to flourish Both were orphans in need of affection and they found that they could give it to each other During the summer of 1909 they decided that they were in love 31 His guardian Father Morgan considered it altogether unfortunate T 3 that his surrogate son was romantically involved with an older Protestant woman Tolkien wrote that the combined tensions contributed to his having muffed his exams T 3 Morgan prohibited him from meeting talking to or even corresponding with Edith until he was 21 Tolkien obeyed this prohibition to the letter 32 with one notable early exception over which Father Morgan threatened to cut short his university career if he did not stop 33 On the evening of his 21st birthday Tolkien wrote to Edith who was living with family friend C H Jessop at Cheltenham He declared that he had never ceased to love her and asked her to marry him Edith replied that she had already accepted the proposal of George Field the brother of one of her closest school friends But Edith said she had agreed to marry Field only because she felt on the shelf and had begun to doubt that Tolkien still cared for her She explained that because of Tolkien s letter everything had changed 34 On 8 January 1913 Tolkien travelled by train to Cheltenham and was met on the platform by Edith The two took a walk into the countryside sat under a railway viaduct and talked By the end of the day Edith had agreed to accept Tolkien s proposal She wrote to Field and returned her engagement ring Field was dreadfully upset at first and the Field family was insulted and angry 34 Upon learning of Edith s new plans Jessop wrote to her guardian I have nothing to say against Tolkien he is a cultured gentleman but his prospects are poor in the extreme and when he will be in a position to marry I cannot imagine Had he adopted a profession it would have been different 35 Following their engagement Edith reluctantly announced that she was converting to Catholicism at Tolkien s insistence Jessop like many others of his age and class strongly anti Catholic was infuriated and he ordered Edith to find other lodgings 36 Edith Bratt and Ronald Tolkien were formally engaged at Birmingham in January 1913 and married at St Mary Immaculate Catholic Church at Warwick on 22 March 1916 37 In his 1941 letter to Michael Tolkien expressed admiration for his wife s willingness to marry a man with no job little money and no prospects except the likelihood of being killed in the Great War T 3 First World War In August 1914 Britain entered the First World War Tolkien s relatives were shocked when he elected not to volunteer immediately for the British Army In a 1941 letter to his son Michael Tolkien recalled In those days chaps joined up or were scorned publicly It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage T 3 Instead Tolkien endured the obloquy T 3 and entered a programme by which he delayed enlistment until completing his degree By the time he passed his finals in July 1915 Tolkien recalled that the hints were becoming outspoken from relatives T 3 He was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers on 15 July 1915 38 39 He trained with the 13th Reserve Battalion on Cannock Chase Rugeley Camp near to Rugeley Staffordshire for 11 months In a letter to Edith Tolkien complained Gentlemen are rare among the superiors and even human beings rare indeed 40 Following their wedding Lieutenant and Mrs Tolkien took up lodgings near the training camp 38 On 2 June 1916 Tolkien received a telegram summoning him to Folkestone for posting to France The Tolkiens spent the night before his departure in a room at the Plough amp Harrow Hotel in Edgbaston Birmingham 41 He later wrote Junior officers were being killed off a dozen a minute Parting from my wife then it was like a death 42 France On 5 June 1916 Tolkien boarded a troop transport for an overnight voyage to Calais Like other soldiers arriving for the first time he was sent to the British Expeditionary Force s BEF base depot at Etaples On 7 June he was informed that he had been assigned as a signals officer to the 11th Service Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers The battalion was part of the 74th Brigade 25th Division While waiting to be summoned to his unit Tolkien sank into boredom To pass the time he composed a poem entitled The Lonely Isle which was inspired by his feelings during the sea crossing to Calais To evade the British Army s postal censorship he developed a code of dots by which Edith could track his movements 43 He left Etaples on 27 June 1916 and joined his battalion at Rubempre near Amiens 44 He found himself commanding enlisted men who were drawn mainly from the mining milling and weaving towns of Lancashire 45 According to John Garth he felt an affinity for these working class men but military protocol prohibited friendships with other ranks Instead he was required to take charge of them discipline them train them and probably censor their letters If possible he was supposed to inspire their love and loyalty 46 Tolkien later lamented The most improper job of any man is bossing other men Not one in a million is fit for it and least of all those who seek the opportunity 46 Battle of the Somme The Schwaben Redoubt painting by William Orpen Imperial War Museum London Tolkien arrived at the Somme in early July 1916 In between terms behind the lines at Bouzincourt he participated in the assaults on the Schwaben Redoubt and the Leipzig salient Tolkien s time in combat was a terrible stress for Edith who feared that every knock on the door might carry news of her husband s death Edith could track her husband s movements on a map of the Western Front The Reverend Mervyn S Evers Anglican chaplain to the Lancashire Fusiliers recorded that Tolkien and his fellow officers were eaten by hordes of lice which found the Medical Officer s ointment merely a kind of hors d oeuvre and the little beggars went at their feast with renewed vigour 47 On 27 October 1916 as his battalion attacked Regina Trench Tolkien contracted trench fever a disease carried by lice He was invalided to England on 8 November 1916 48 Many of his dearest school friends were killed in the war Among their number were Rob Gilson of the Tea Club and Barrovian Society who was killed on the first day of the Somme while leading his men in the assault on Beaumont Hamel Fellow T C B S member Geoffrey Smith was killed during the battle when a German artillery shell landed on a first aid post Tolkien s battalion was almost completely wiped out following his return to England 49 Men of the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers in a communication trench near Beaumont Hamel 1916 Photo by Ernest Brooks According to John Garth Kitchener s Army in which Tolkien served at once marked existing social boundaries and counteracted the class system by throwing everyone into a desperate situation together Tolkien was grateful writing that it had taught him a deep sympathy and feeling for the Tommy especially the plain soldier from the agricultural counties 50 Home front Further information The Great War and Middle earth A weak and emaciated Tolkien spent the remainder of the war alternating between hospitals and garrison duties being deemed medically unfit for general service 51 52 53 During his recovery in a cottage in Little Haywood Staffordshire he began to work on what he called The Book of Lost Tales beginning with The Fall of Gondolin Lost Tales represented Tolkien s attempt to create a mythology for England a project he would abandon without ever completing 54 Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps It was at this time that Edith bore their first child John Francis Reuel Tolkien In a 1941 letter Tolkien described his son John as conceived and carried during the starvation year of 1917 and the great U Boat campaign round about the Battle of Cambrai when the end of the war seemed as far off as it does now T 3 Tolkien was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant on 6 January 1918 55 When he was stationed at Kingston upon Hull he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos and Edith began to dance for him in a clearing among the flowering hemlock After his wife s death in 1971 Tolkien remembered T 4 I never called Edith Luthien but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief part of the Silmarillion It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks 56 at Roos in Yorkshire where I was for a brief time in command of an outpost of the Humber Garrison in 1917 and she was able to live with me for a while In those days her hair was raven her skin clear her eyes brighter than you have seen them and she could sing and dance But the story has gone crooked amp I am left and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos T 4 On 16 July 1919 Tolkien was taken off active service at Fovant on Salisbury Plain with a temporary disability pension 57 Academic and writing career 2 Darnley Road the former home of Tolkien in West Park Leeds 20 Northmoor Road one of Tolkien s former homes in Oxford On 3 November 1920 Tolkien was demobilized and left the army retaining his rank of lieutenant 58 His first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W 59 In 1920 he took up a post as reader in English language at the University of Leeds becoming the youngest member of the academic staff there 60 While at Leeds he produced A Middle English Vocabulary and a definitive edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with E V Gordon both became academic standard works for several decades He translated Sir Gawain Pearl and Sir Orfeo In 1925 he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo Saxon with a fellowship at Pembroke College citation needed In mid 1919 he began to tutor undergraduates privately most importantly those of Lady Margaret Hall and St Hugh s College given that the women s colleges were in great need of good teachers in their early years and Tolkien as a married professor then still not common was considered suitable as a bachelor don would not have been 61 During his time at Pembroke College Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings while living at 20 Northmoor Road in North Oxford He also published a philological essay in 1932 on the name Nodens following Sir Mortimer Wheeler s unearthing of a Roman Asclepeion at Lydney Park Gloucestershire in 1928 62 Beowulf Further information Beowulf A Translation and Commentary and On Translating Beowulf In the 1920s Tolkien undertook a translation of Beowulf which he finished in 1926 but did not publish It was finally edited by his son and published in 2014 more than 40 years after Tolkien s death and almost 90 years after its completion 63 Ten years after finishing his translation Tolkien gave a highly acclaimed lecture on the work Beowulf The Monsters and the Critics which had a lasting influence on Beowulf research 64 Lewis E Nicholson said that the article is widely recognized as a turning point in Beowulfian criticism noting that Tolkien established the primacy of the poetic nature of the work as opposed to its purely linguistic elements 65 At the time the consensus of scholarship deprecated Beowulf for dealing with childish battles with monsters rather than realistic tribal warfare Tolkien argued that the author of Beowulf was addressing human destiny in general not as limited by particular tribal politics and therefore the monsters were essential to the poem 66 Where Beowulf does deal with specific tribal struggles as at Finnsburg Tolkien argued firmly against reading in fantastic elements 67 In the essay Tolkien also revealed how highly he regarded Beowulf Beowulf is among my most valued sources this influence may be seen throughout his Middle earth legendarium 68 According to Humphrey Carpenter Tolkien began his series of lectures on Beowulf in a most striking way entering the room silently fixing the audience with a look and suddenly declaiming in Old English the opening lines of the poem starting with a great cry of Hwaet It was a dramatic impersonation of an Anglo Saxon bard in a mead hall and it made the students realize that Beowulf was not just a set text but a powerful piece of dramatic poetry 69 Decades later W H Auden wrote to his former professor thanking him for the unforgettable experience of hearing him recite Beowulf and stating The voice was the voice of Gandalf 69 Second World War Merton College where Tolkien was Professor of English Language and Literature 1945 1959 In the run up to the Second World War Tolkien was earmarked as a codebreaker In January 1939 he was asked to serve in the cryptographic department of the Foreign Office in the event of national emergency Beginning on 27 March he took an instructional course at the London HQ of the Government Code and Cypher School He was informed in October that his services would not be required T 5 70 In 1945 Tolkien moved to Merton College Oxford becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature 71 in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959 He served as an external examiner for University College Galway now NUI Galway for many years 72 In 1954 Tolkien received an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland of which University College Galway was a constituent college 73 Tolkien completed The Lord of the Rings in 1948 close to a decade after the first sketches 74 Family Main article Tolkien family The Tolkiens had four children John Francis Reuel Tolkien 17 November 1917 22 January 2003 Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien 22 October 1920 27 February 1984 Christopher John Reuel Tolkien 21 November 1924 16 January 2020 and Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien 18 June 1929 28 February 2022 75 76 Tolkien was very devoted to his children and sent them illustrated letters from Father Christmas when they were young 77 Retirement Bust of Tolkien in the chapel of Exeter College Oxford During his life in retirement from 1959 up to his death in 1973 Tolkien received steadily increasing public attention and literary fame In 1961 his friend C S Lewis even nominated him for the Nobel Prize in Literature 78 The sales of his books were so profitable that he regretted that he had not chosen early retirement 15 In a 1972 letter he deplored having become a cult figure but admitted that even the nose of a very modest idol cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense T 6 Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory T 7 and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth which was then a seaside resort patronized by the British upper middle class Tolkien s status as a best selling author gave them easy entry into polite society but Tolkien deeply missed the company of his fellow Inklings Edith however was overjoyed to step into the role of a society hostess which had been the reason that Tolkien selected Bournemouth in the first place The genuine and deep affection between Ronald and Edith was demonstrated by their care about the other s health in details like wrapping presents in the generous way he gave up his life at Oxford so she could retire to Bournemouth and in her pride in his becoming a famous author They were tied together too by love for their children and grandchildren 79 In his retirement Tolkien was a consultant and translator for The Jerusalem Bible published in 1966 He was initially assigned a larger portion to translate but due to other commitments only managed to offer some criticisms of other contributors and a translation of the Book of Jonah T 8 Final years The grave of J R R and Edith Tolkien Wolvercote Cemetery Oxford Edith died on 29 November 1971 at the age of 82 Ronald returned to Oxford where Merton College gave him convenient rooms near the High Street He missed Edith but enjoyed being back in the city 80 Tolkien was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1972 New Year Honours 81 and received the insignia of the Order at Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1972 T 9 In the same year Oxford University gave him an honorary Doctorate of Letters 29 82 He had the name Luthien sic engraved on Edith s tombstone at Wolvercote Cemetery Oxford When Tolkien died 21 months later on 2 September 1973 from a bleeding ulcer and chest infection 83 at the age of 81 84 he was buried in the same grave with Beren added to his name Tolkien s will was proven on 20 December 1973 with his estate valued at 190 577 equivalent to 2 452 000 in 2021 85 86 Views The Corner of the Eagle and Child Pub Oxford where the Inklings met 1930 1950 Religion Tolkien s Christianity redirects here Not to be confused with Christianity in Middle earth Tolkien s Catholicism was a significant factor in C S Lewis s conversion from atheism to Christianity although Tolkien was dismayed that Lewis chose to join the Church of England 87 He once wrote to Rayner Unwin s daughter Camilla who wished to know the purpose of life that it was to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have and to be moved by it to praise and thanks 88 He had a special devotion to the blessed sacrament writing to his son Michael that in the Blessed Sacrament you will find romance glory honour fidelity and the true way of all your loves upon earth and more than that T 3 He accordingly encouraged frequent reception of Holy Communion again writing to his son Michael that the only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion He believed the Catholic Church to be true most of all because of the pride of place and the honour in which it holds the Blessed Sacrament T 10 In the last years of his life Tolkien resisted the liturgical changes implemented after the Second Vatican Council especially the use of English for the liturgy he continued to make the responses in Latin loudly ignoring the rest of the congregation 80 Race Main article Tolkien and race Tolkien s fantasy writings have often been accused of embodying outmoded attitudes to race 89 90 However scholars have noted that he was influenced by Victorian attitudes to race and to a literary tradition of monsters and that he was anti racist both in peacetime and during the two World Wars With the late 19th century background of eugenics and a fear of moral decline some critics saw the mention of race mixing in The Lord of the Rings as embodying scientific racism 91 Other commentators saw in Tolkien s orcs a reflection of wartime propaganda caricatures of the Japanese 92 Critics have noted too that the work embodies a moral geography with good in the West evil in the East 93 Against this scholars have noted that Tolkien was outraged in peacetime by Nazi racial theory while during the Second World War he was equally disgusted by anti German racial propaganda 94 95 Other scholars have stated that Tolkien s Middle earth is definitely polycultural and polylingual and that attacks on Tolkien based on The Lord of the Rings often omit relevant evidence from the text 96 97 Nature During most of his own life conservationism was not yet on the political agenda and Tolkien himself did not directly express conservationist views except in some private letters in which he tells about his fondness for forests and sadness at tree felling In later years a number of authors of biographies or literary analyses of Tolkien conclude that during his writing of The Lord of the Rings Tolkien gained increased interest in the value of wild and untamed nature and in protecting what wild nature was left in the industrialized world 98 99 100 WritingInfluences Main article J R R Tolkien s influences Tolkien s fantasy books on Middle earth especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion drew on a wide array of influences including his philological interest in language 101 Christianity 102 103 mythology archaeology 104 ancient and modern literature and personal experience His philological work centred on the study of Old English literature especially Beowulf and he acknowledged its importance to his writings 105 He was a gifted linguist influenced by Germanic 106 Celtic 107 Finnish 108 and Greek 109 110 language and mythology Commentators have attempted to identify many literary and topological antecedents for characters places and events in Tolkien s writings Some writers were important to him including the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris 111 and he undoubtedly made use of some real place names such as Bag End the name of his aunt s home 112 He acknowledged too John Buchan and H Rider Haggard authors of modern adventure stories that he enjoyed 113 114 115 The effects of some specific experiences have been identified Tolkien s childhood in the English countryside and its urbanization by the growth of Birmingham influenced his creation of the Shire 116 while his personal experience of fighting in the trenches of the First World War affected his depiction of Mordor 117 Publications Further information J R R Tolkien bibliography Beowulf The Monsters and the Critics Main article Beowulf The Monsters and the Critics In addition to writing fiction Tolkien was an author of academic literary criticism His seminal 1936 lecture later published as an article revolutionized the treatment of the Anglo Saxon epic Beowulf by literary critics The essay remains highly influential in the study of Old English literature to this day 118 Beowulf is one of the most significant influences upon Tolkien s later fiction with major details of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings being adapted from the poem 119 On Fairy Stories Main article On Fairy Stories This essay discusses the fairy story as a literary form It was initially written as the 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St Andrews Scotland Tolkien focuses on Andrew Lang s work as a folklorist and collector of fairy tales He disagreed with Lang s broad inclusion in his Fairy Book collections of traveller s tales beast fables and other types of stories Tolkien held a narrower perspective viewing fairy stories as those that took place in Faerie an enchanted realm with or without fairies as characters He viewed them as the natural development of the interaction of human imagination and human language 120 Children s books and other short works In addition to his mythopoeic compositions Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children 121 He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them building up a series of short stories later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters 122 Other works included Mr Bliss and Roverandom for children and Leaf by Niggle part of Tree and Leaf The Adventures of Tom Bombadil Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major like The Hobbit borrowed ideas from his legendarium 123 The Hobbit Main article The Hobbit Tolkien never expected his stories to become popular but by sheer accident a book called The Hobbit which he had written some years before for his own children came in 1936 to the attention of Susan Dagnall an employee of the London publishing firm George Allen amp Unwin who persuaded Tolkien to submit it for publication 84 When it was published a year later the book attracted adult readers as well as children and it became popular enough for the publishers to ask Tolkien to produce a sequel 124 The Lord of the Rings Main article The Lord of the Rings The request for a sequel prompted Tolkien to begin what became his most famous work the epic novel The Lord of the Rings originally published in three volumes in 1954 1955 Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for The Lord of the Rings during which time he received the constant support of the Inklings in particular his closest friend C S Lewis the author of The Chronicles of Narnia Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion but in a time long after it 125 Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings to be a children s tale in the style of The Hobbit but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing 126 Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit it addressed an older audience drawing on the immense backstory of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes 125 Tolkien strongly influenced the fantasy genre that grew up after the book s success 127 The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the 20th century judged by both sales and reader surveys 128 In the 2003 Big Read survey conducted by the BBC The Lord of the Rings was found to be the UK s Best loved Novel 129 Australians voted The Lord of the Rings My Favourite Book in a 2004 survey conducted by the Australian ABC 130 In a 1999 poll of Amazon com customers The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite book of the millennium 131 In 2002 Tolkien was voted the 92nd greatest Briton in a poll conducted by the BBC and in 2004 he was voted 35th in the SABC3 s Great South Africans the only person to appear in both lists His popularity is not limited to the English speaking world in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK s Big Read survey about 250 000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings to be their favourite work of literature 132 The Silmarillion Tolkien wrote a brief Sketch of the Mythology which included the tales of Beren and Luthien and of Turin and that sketch eventually evolved into the Quenta Silmarillion an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published Tolkien desperately hoped to publish it along with The Lord of the Rings but publishers both Allen amp Unwin and Collins declined Moreover printing costs were very high in 1950s Britain requiring The Lord of the Rings to be published in three volumes 133 The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle earth edited by Tolkien s son Christopher Tolkien From around 1936 Tolkien began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Numenor which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis 134 Tolkien appointed his son Christopher to be his literary executor and he with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay later a well known fantasy author in his own right organized some of this material into a single coherent volume published as The Silmarillion in 1977 It received the Locus Award for Best Fantasy novel in 1978 135 Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle earth In 1980 Christopher Tolkien published a collection of more fragmentary material under the title Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle earth In subsequent years 1983 1996 he published a large amount of the remaining unpublished materials together with notes and extensive commentary in a series of twelve volumes called The History of Middle earth They contain unfinished abandoned alternative and outright contradictory accounts since they were always a work in progress for Tolkien and he only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories There is not complete consistency between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit the two most closely related works because Tolkien never fully integrated all their traditions into each other He commented in 1965 while editing The Hobbit for a third edition that he would have preferred to rewrite the book completely because of the style of its prose 136 Works compiled by Christopher Tolkien Date Title Description2007 The Children of Hurin tells the story of Turin Turambar and his sister Nienor children of Hurin Thalion 137 2009 The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun retells the legend of Sigurd and the fall of the Niflungs from Germanic mythology as a narrative poem in alliterative verse modelled after the Old Norse poetry of the Elder Edda 138 2013 The Fall of Arthur is a narrative poem that Tolkien composed in the early 1930s inspired by high medieval Arthurian fiction but set in the Post Roman Migration Period showing Arthur as a British warlord fighting the Saxon invasion 139 2014 Beowulf A Translation and Commentary is a prose translation of Beowulf that Tolkien made in the 1920s with commentary from Tolkien s lecture notes 140 141 2015 The Story of Kullervo is a retelling of a 19th century Finnish poem that Tolkien wrote in 1915 while studying at Oxford 142 2017 Beren and Luthien is one of the oldest and most often revised in Tolkien s legendarium a version appeared in The Silmarillion 143 2018 The Fall of Gondolin tells of a beautiful mysterious city destroyed by dark forces Tolkien called it the first real story of Middle earth 144 145 Manuscript locations Before his death Tolkien negotiated the sale of the manuscripts drafts proofs and other materials related to his then published works including The Lord of the Rings The Hobbit and Farmer Giles of Ham to the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University s John P Raynor S J Library in Milwaukee Wisconsin 146 After his death his estate donated the papers containing Tolkien s Silmarillion mythology and his academic work to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University 147 The Bodleian Library held an exhibition of his work in 2018 including more than 60 items which had never been seen in public before 148 In 2009 a partial draft of Language and Human Nature which Tolkien had begun co writing with C S Lewis but had never completed was discovered at the Bodleian Library 149 Languages and philologyLinguistic career Both Tolkien s academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology He specialized in English philology at university and in 1915 graduated with Old Norse as his special subject He worked on the Oxford English Dictionary from 1918 and is credited with having worked on a number of words starting with the letter W including walrus over which he struggled mightily 150 151 In 1920 he became Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of linguistics from five to twenty He gave courses in Old English heroic verse history of English various Old English and Middle English texts Old and Middle English philology introductory Germanic philology Gothic Old Icelandic and Medieval Welsh When in 1925 aged thirty three Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo Saxon at Pembroke College Oxford he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a Viking Club T 11 He also had a certain if imperfect knowledge of Finnish 152 Privately Tolkien was attracted to things of racial and linguistic significance and in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh which is crucial to his understanding of race and language he entertained notions of inherent linguistic predilections which he termed the native language as opposed to the cradle tongue which a person first learns to speak 153 He considered the West Midlands dialect of Middle English to be his own native language and as he wrote to W H Auden in 1955 I am a West midlander by blood and took to early west midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it T 12 Language construction See also Languages constructed by J R R Tolkien Ah like gold fall the leaves in the wind long years numberless as the wings of trees the beginning of the Quenya poem Namarie written in Tengwar and in Latin script Parallel to Tolkien s professional work as a philologist and sometimes overshadowing this work to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin was his affection for constructing languages The most developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin the etymological connection between which formed the core of much of Tolkien s legendarium Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony and Quenya in particular was designed from phonaesthetic considerations it was intended as an Elven latin and was phonologically based on Latin with ingredients from Finnish Welsh English and Greek T 13 An addition from late 1945 was Adunaic or Numenorean a language of a faintly Semitic flavour connected with Tolkien s Atlantis legend which by The Notion Club Papers ties directly into his ideas about the inability of language to be inherited and via the Second Age and the story of Earendil was grounded in the legendarium thereby providing a link of Tolkien s 20th century real primary world with the legendary past of his Middle earth citation needed Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages in 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him in his lecture A Secret Vice 154 Your language construction will breed a mythology but by 1956 he had concluded that Volapuk Esperanto Ido Novial amp c amp c are dead far deader than ancient unused languages because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends T 14 The popularity of Tolkien s books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular and even on mainstream dictionaries which today commonly accept Tolkien s idiosyncratic spellings dwarves and dwarvish alongside dwarfs and dwarfish which had been little used since the mid 19th century and earlier In fact according to Tolkien had the Old English plural survived it would have been dwarrows or dwerrows He also coined the term eucatastrophe though it remains mainly used in connection with his own work citation needed ArtworkMain article Tolkien s artwork Tolkien learnt to paint and draw as a child and continued to do so all his adult life From early in his writing career the development of his stories was accompanied by drawings and paintings especially of landscapes and by maps of the lands in which the tales were set He also produced pictures to accompany the stories told to his own children including those later published in Mr Bliss and Roverandom and sent them elaborately illustrated letters purporting to come from Father Christmas Although he regarded himself as an amateur the publisher used the author s own cover art his maps and full page illustrations for the early editions of The Hobbit He prepared maps and illustrations for The Lord of the Rings but the first edition contained only the maps his calligraphy for the inscription on the One Ring and his ink drawing of the Doors of Durin Much of his artwork was collected and published in 1995 as a book J R R Tolkien Artist and Illustrator The book discusses Tolkien s paintings drawings and sketches and reproduces approximately 200 examples of his work 155 Catherine McIlwaine curated a major exhibition of Tolkien s artwork at the Bodleian Library Tolkien Maker of Middle earth accompanied by a book of the same name that analyses Tolkien s achievement and illustrates the full range of the types of artwork that he created 156 LegacyInfluence Further information Works inspired by J R R Tolkien While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence and the shaping of the modern fantasy genre This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the father of modern fantasy literature 157 158 or more precisely of high fantasy 159 as in the work of authors such as Ursula Le Guin and her Earthsea series 160 In 2008 The Times ranked him sixth on a list of The 50 greatest British writers since 1945 161 His influence has extended to music including the Danish group the Tolkien Ensemble s setting of all the poetry in The Lord of the Rings to their vocal music 162 and to a broad range of games set in Middle earth 163 Adaptations Further information Middle earth in film In a 1951 letter to publisher Milton Waldman 1895 1976 Tolkien wrote about his intentions to create a body of more or less connected legend of which t he cycles should be linked to a majestic whole and yet leave scope for other minds and hands wielding paint and music and drama T 15 The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien s legends Personally known to him were Pauline Baynes Tolkien s favourite illustrator of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Farmer Giles of Ham and Donald Swann who set the music to The Road Goes Ever On Queen Margrethe II of Denmark created illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s She sent them to Tolkien who was struck by the similarity they bore in style to his own drawings 164 Tolkien was not implacably opposed to the idea of a dramatic adaptation however and sold the film stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968 United Artists never made a film although director John Boorman was planning a live action film in the early 1970s In 1976 the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises a division of the Saul Zaentz Company and the first film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was released in 1978 as an animated rotoscoping film directed by Ralph Bakshi with screenplay by the fantasy writer Peter S Beagle It covered only the first half of the story of The Lord of the Rings 165 In 1977 an animated musical television film of The Hobbit was made by Rankin Bass and in 1980 they produced the animated musical television film The Return of the King which covered some of the portions of The Lord of the Rings that Bakshi was unable to complete From 2001 to 2003 New Line Cinema released The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy of live action films that were filmed in New Zealand and directed by Peter Jackson The series was successful performing extremely well commercially and winning numerous Oscars 166 From 2012 to 2014 Warner Bros and New Line Cinema released The Hobbit a series of three films based on The Hobbit with Peter Jackson serving as executive producer director and co writer 167 The first instalment The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey was released in December 2012 168 the second The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug in December 2013 169 and the last instalment The Hobbit The Battle of the Five Armies in December 2014 170 In 2017 Amazon acquired the global television rights to The Lord of the Rings for a series of new stories set before The Fellowship of the Ring 171 172 Memorials Main article List of things named after J R R Tolkien and his works Tolkien and the characters and places from his works have become eponyms of many real world objects These include geographical features on Titan Saturn s largest moon 173 street names such as There and Back Again Lane inspired by The Hobbit 174 mountains such as Mount Shadowfax Mount Gandalf and Mount Aragorn in Canada 175 176 companies such as Palantir Technologies 177 and species including the wasp Shireplitis tolkieni 178 37 new species of Elachista moths 178 179 and many fossils 180 181 182 Since 2003 The Tolkien Society has organized Tolkien Reading Day which takes place on 25 March in schools around the world 183 In 2013 Pembroke College Oxford University established an annual lecture on fantasy literature in Tolkien s honour 184 In 2012 Tolkien was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork the Beatles Sgt Pepper s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admired 185 186 A 2019 biographical film Tolkien focused on Tolkien s early life and war experiences 187 The Tolkien family and estate stated that they did not approve of authorise or participate in the making of the film 188 Sarehole Mill s blue plaque Several blue plaques in England commemorate places associated with Tolkien including for his childhood his workplaces and places he visited 41 189 190 Address Commemoration Date unveiled Issued bySarehole Mill Hall Green Birmingham Inspired 1896 1900 i e lived nearby 15 August 2002 Birmingham Civic Society and The Tolkien Society 191 1 Duchess Place Ladywood Birmingham Lived near here 1902 1910 Unknown Birmingham Civic Society 192 4 Highfield Road Edgbaston Birmingham Lived here 1910 1911 Unknown Birmingham Civic Society and The Tolkien Society 193 Plough and Harrow Hagley Road Birmingham Stayed here June 1916 June 1997 The Tolkien Society 194 2 Darnley Road West Park Leeds First academic appointment Leeds 1 October 2012 The Tolkien Society and Leeds Civic Trust 195 20 Northmoor Road North Oxford Lived here 1930 1947 3 December 2002 Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board 196 Hotel Miramar East Overcliff Drive Bournemouth Stayed here regularly from the 1950s until 1972 10 June 1992 by Priscilla Tolkien Borough of Bournemouth 197 The Royal Mint is producing a commemorative 2 coin in 2023 to mark the 50th anniversary of Tolkien s death 198 Canonization process On 2 September 2017 the Oxford Oratory Tolkien s parish church during his time in Oxford offered its first Mass for the intention of Tolkien s cause for beatification to be opened 199 200 A prayer was written for his cause 199 Notes Tolkien pronounced his surname ˈ t ɒ l k iː n TOL keen 1 page needed In General American the surname is commonly pronounced ˈ t oʊ l k iː n TOHL keen 2 ReferencesPrimary Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 267 Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 306 to Michael Tolkien 1967 or 1968 a b c d e f g h Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 43 to Michael Tolkien 6 8 March 1941 a b Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 340 Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 35 see also editorial note Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 336 to Sir Patrick Browne 23 May 1972 Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 332 to Michael Tolkien 24 January 1972 Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 294 to Charlotte and Denis Plimmer 8 February 1967 Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 334 editorial note Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 250 to Michael Tolkien 1 November 1963 Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 7 to the Electors of the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo Saxon University of Oxford 27 June 1925 Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 163 Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 144 Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 180 Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 131 Secondary Tolkien Christopher ed 1988 The Return of the Shadow The History of The Lord of the Rings Part One The History of Middle earth Vol 6 ISBN 0 04 440162 0 Wells John C 2008 Longman Pronunciation Dictionary 3rd ed Longman ISBN 978 1 4058 8118 0 a b c d Derdzinski Ryszard 2017 On J R R Tolkien s Roots PDF Archived from the original PDF on 10 January 2019 a b c Derdzinski Ryszard Z Prus do Anglii Saga rodziny J R R Tolkiena XIV XIX wiek PDF Archived from the original PDF on 10 January 2019 Absolute Verteilung des Namens Tolkien verwandt de in German MyHeritage UK Archived from the original on 10 May 2013 Retrieved 9 January 2012 Ash nazg gimbatul Der Spiegel in German No 35 1969 25 August 1969 Archived from the original on 27 April 2011 Professor Tolkien der seinen Namen vom deutschen Wort tollkuhn ableitet Geier Fabian 2009 J R R Tolkien in German Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag p 9 ISBN 978 3 499 50664 2 Carpenter 1977 p 14 Carpenter 1977 p 13 Both the spider incident and the visit to the homestead are covered here Carpenter 1977 p 24 Carpenter 1977 Ch I Bloemfontein At 9 Ashfield Road King s Heath Carpenter 1977 p 27 Carpenter 1977 p 113 Carpenter 1977 p 29 a b Doughan David 2002 JRR Tolkien Biography Life of Tolkien Archived from the original on 3 March 2006 Carpenter 1977 p 22 Carpenter 1977 p 30 Carpenter 1977 pp 24 51 a b Carpenter 1977 p 31 Carpenter 1977 p 39 Carpenter 1977 pp 25 38 Tolkien s Not So Secret Vice Archived from the original on 22 November 2012 Tolkien s Languages Archived from the original on 24 December 2013 Bramlett Perry C 2002 I Am in Fact a Hobbit An Introduction to the Life and Works of J R R Tolkien Mercer University Press p 136 ISBN 978 0 86554 894 7 Archived from the original on 15 February 2017 See also Book of the Foxrook Archived 2 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine Smith Arden R 2006 Esperanto In Drout Michael D C ed The J R R Tolkien Encyclopedia Scholarship and Critical Assessment Routledge p 172 and Book of the Foxrook Archived 2 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine transcription on Tolkien i Esperanto Archived 19 October 2016 at the Wayback Machine the text begins with PRIVATA KODO SKAŬTA Private Scout Code Carpenter 1977 pp 53 54 Tolkien and the Great War p 6 1911 J R R Tolkien besichtigt das Oberwallis Valais Wallis Digital in German Archived from the original on 5 March 2016 citing Carpenter amp Tolkien 1981 Letters 306 a b Hammond Wayne G Scull Christina 26 February 2004 The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien Author and Illustrator Royal Mail Group plc commemorative postage stamp pack Carpenter 1977 pp 45 63 64 Carpenter 1977 p 40 Doughan David 2002 War Lost Tales and Academia J R R Tolkien A Biographical Sketch Archived from the original on 3 March 2006 Carpenter 1977 p 43 a b Carpenter 1977 pp 67 69 The Tolkien Family Album 1992 p 34 Carpenter 1977 p 73 Carpenter 1977 p 86 a b Carpenter 1977 pp 77 85 No 29232 The London Gazette 16 July 1915 p 6968 Tolkien and the Great War p 94 a b Memorials The Tolkien Society 29 October 2016 Archived from the original on 8 March 2021 Retrieved 3 March 2021 Garth 2003 p 138 Garth 2003 pp 144 145 Garth 2003 pp 147 148 Garth 2003 pp 148 149 a b Garth 2003 p 149 Quoted in Garth 2003 p 200 Carpenter 1977 p 93 Carpenter 1977 pp 93 103 105 Garth 2003 pp 94 95 Garth 2003 pp 207 et seq Tolkien s Webley 455 service revolver was put on display in 2006 as part of a Battle of the Somme exhibition in the Imperial War Museum London See Second Lieutenant J R R Tolkien Battle of the Somme Imperial War Museum Archived from the original on 25 November 2018 and Webley 455 Mark 6 VI Military Imperial War Museum Collection Search Imperial War Museum Archived from the original on 25 November 2018 Several of his service records mostly dealing with his health problems can be seen at the National Archives Officer s service record J R R Tolkien First World War National Archives Archived from the original on 8 March 2009 Retrieved 2 December 2007 Carpenter 1977 p 98 No 30588 The London Gazette Supplement 19 March 1918 p 3561 Following rural English usage Tolkien used the name hemlock for various plants with white flowers in umbels resembling hemlock Conium maculatum the flowers Edith danced among were more probably cow parsley Anthriscus sylvestris or wild carrot Daucus carota See John Garth Tolkien and the Great War Harper Collins Houghton Mifflin 2003 chapter 12 and Peter Gilliver Jeremy Marshall amp Edmund Weiner The Ring of Words Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary OUP 2006 Grotta 2002 p 58 No 32110 The London Gazette Supplement 2 November 1920 p 10711 Gilliver Peter Marshall Jeremy Weiner Edmund 2006 The Ring of Words Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary Oxford University Press Grotta Daniel 28 March 2001 J R R Tolkien Architect of Middle Earth Running Press pp 64 ISBN 978 0 7624 0956 3 Archived from the original on 11 May 2011 Zettersten A 25 April 2011 J R R Tolkien s Double Worlds and Creative Process Language and Life Springer ISBN 978 0 230 11840 9 Archived from the original on 17 October 2018 See The Name Nodens 1932 in the bibliographical listing For the etymology see Nodens Etymology Acocella Joan 2 June 2014 Slaying Monsters Tolkien s Beowulf The New Yorker Archived from the original on 30 May 2014 Carpenter 1977 p 143 Ramey Bill 30 March 1998 The Unity of Beowulf Tolkien and the Critics Wisdom s Children Archived from the original on 21 April 2006 Tolkien Finn and Hengest Chiefly p 4 in the Introduction by Alan Bliss Tolkien Finn and Hengest the discussion of Eotena passim Kennedy Michael 2001 Tolkien and Beowulf Warriors of Middle earth Amon Hen Archived from the original on 9 May 2006 a b Carpenter 1977 p 133 Hammond Wayne G Scull Christina 2006 The J R R Tolkien Companion and Guide Vol 2 HarperCollins pp 224 226 232 ISBN 978 0 618 39113 4 Grotta Daniel 28 March 2001 J R R Tolkien Architect of Middle Earth Running Press pp 110 ISBN 978 0 7624 0956 3 Archived from the original on 11 January 2014 McCoy Felicity Hayes 11 June 2019 When my father met Gandalf Tolkien s time as an external examiner at UCG The Irish Times Archived from the original on 25 March 2021 Retrieved 3 March 2021 Honorary Degrees Awarded National University of Ireland 3 March 2021 Archived from the original on 28 January 2021 Retrieved 3 March 2021 Carpenter 1977 pp 206 208 Lee 2020 pp 12 15 In memory of Priscilla Tolkien Lady Margaret Hall Retrieved 1 March 2022 Carpenter 1977 p 167 Nomination Database Nobel Foundation Archived from the original on 21 April 2017 Carpenter 1977 Part 7 Chapter 2 Bournemouth a b Tolkien Simon 2003 My Grandfather JRR Tolkien Archived from the original on 27 September 2011 No 45554 The London Gazette Supplement 1 January 1972 p 9 Shropshire County Council 2002 J R R Tolkien Literary Heritage West Midlands Archived from the original on 28 July 2012 Birzer Bradley J 13 May 2014 J R R Tolkien s Sanctifying Myth Understanding Middle earth Open Road Media ISBN 978 1 4976 4891 3 Archived from the original on 22 May 2020 a b J R R Tolkien Dead at 81 Wrote The Lord of the Rings The New York Times 3 September 1973 Archived from the original on 11 April 2009 J R R Tolkien linguist scholar and author of The Lord of the Rings died today in Bournemouth He was 81 years old UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark Gregory 2017 The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain 1209 to Present New Series MeasuringWorth Retrieved 11 June 2022 Tolkien John Ronald Reul of Merton College Oxford probatesearchservice gov UK Government 1973 Archived from the original on 22 May 2020 Carpenter Humphrey 1978 The Inklings Allen amp Unwin ISBN 978 0 00 774869 3 Lewis was brought up in the Church of Ireland Ware Jim 2006 Finding God in The Hobbit p xxii ISBN 978 1 4143 0596 7 Yatt John 2 December 2002 Wraiths and Race The Guardian Archived from the original on 26 August 2013 Retrieved 25 May 2010 Bhatia Shyam 8 January 2003 The Lord of the Rings rooted in racism Rediff India Abroad Archived from the original on 3 November 2010 Retrieved 4 December 2010 Rogers William N II Underwood Michael R 2000 Sir George Clark ed Gagool and Gollum Exemplars of Degeneration inKing Solomon s MinesandThe Hobbit J R R Tolkien and His Literary Resonances Views of Middle earth Greenwood Publishing Group pp 121 132 ISBN 978 0 313 30845 1 Archived from the original on 26 May 2021 Retrieved 3 March 2021 Ibata David 12 January 2003 Lord of racism Critics view trilogy as discriminatory The Chicago Tribune Archived from the original on 8 March 2021 Retrieved 3 March 2021 Magoun John F G 2006 South The In Drout Michael D C ed J R R Tolkien Encyclopedia Routledge pp 622 623 ISBN 1 135 88034 4 Rearick Anderson 2004 Why is the Only Good Orc a Dead Orc The Dark Face of Racism Examined in Tolkien s World Modern Fiction Studies 50 4 866 867 doi 10 1353 mfs 2005 0008 JSTOR 26286382 S2CID 162647975 Power Ed 27 November 2018 JRR Tolkien s orcs are no more racist than George Lucas s Stormtroopers The Daily Telegraph Archived from the original on 27 January 2021 Retrieved 20 January 2021 Straubhaar Sandra Ballif 2004 Chance Jane ed Myth Late Roman History and Multiculturalism in Tolkien s Middle Earth Tolkien and the invention of myth a reader University Press of Kentucky pp 101 117 ISBN 978 0 8131 2301 1 Lobdell Jared 2004 The World of the Rings Open Court p 116 ISBN 978 0875483030 Clark George Timmons Daniel eds 2000 J R R Tolkien and His Literary Resonances Views of Middle earth Greenwood Publishing Group pages needed Saguaro Shelley Thacker Deborah Cogan 2013 Tolkien and Trees PDF In Hunt Peter ed J R R Tolkien New Casebook Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978 1 137 26399 5 Archived PDF from the original on 3 October 2016 Dickerson Matthew Evans Jonathan 2006 Ents Elves and Eriador The Environmental Vision of J R R Tolkien University of Kentucky Press ISBN 978 0 8131 2418 6 Shippey 2005 pp 48 49 and throughout Bofetti Jason November 2001 Tolkien s Catholic Imagination Crisis Magazine Archived from the original on 21 August 2006 Caldecott Stratford January February 2002 The Lord amp Lady of the Rings Touchstone Magazine Archived from the original on 26 April 2011 Shippey 2005 pp 40 41 Shippey 2005 pp 104 190 197 217 and throughout Shippey 2005 pp 66 74 and throughout Fimi Dimitra 2006 Mad Elves and elusive beauty some Celtic strands of Tolkien s mythology Folklore 117 2 156 170 doi 10 1080 00155870600707847 ISSN 1547 3155 JSTOR 30035484 S2CID 162292626 Handwerk Brian 1 March 2004 Lord of the Rings Inspired by an Ancient Epic National Geographic News Archived from the original on 16 March 2006 Purtill Richard L 2003 J R R Tolkien Myth Morality and Religion San Francisco Harper amp Row pp 52 131 ISBN 0 89870 948 2 Flieger Verlyn 2001 A Question of Time J R R Tolkien s Road to Faerie Kent State University Press pp 76 77 ISBN 978 0873386999 Archived from the original on 26 May 2021 Retrieved 3 March 2021 Carpenter 1977 p 77 Morton Andrew 2009 Tolkien s Bag End Studley Warwickshire Brewin Books ISBN 978 1 85858 455 3 OCLC 551485018 Morton wrote an account of his findings Archived 5 December 2020 at the Wayback Machine for the Tolkien Library Resnick Henry 1967 An Interview with Tolkien Niekas pp 37 47 Lobdell Jared C 2004 The World of the Rings Language Religion and Adventure in Tolkien Open Court pp 5 6 ISBN 978 0 8126 9569 4 Rogers William N II Underwood Michael R 2000 Gagool and Gollum Exemplars of Degeneration in King Solomon s Mines and The Hobbit In Clark George Timmons Daniel eds J R R Tolkien and His Literary Resonances Views of Middle earth Greenwood Press pp 121 132 ISBN 978 0 313 30845 1 Carpenter 1977 p 180 Ciabattari Jane 20 November 2014 Hobbits and hippies Tolkien and the counterculture BBC Archived from the original on 31 March 2019 Retrieved 3 March 2021 Niles John D 1998 Beowulf Truth and Meaning In Bjork Robert E Niles John D eds ABeowulfHandbook Lincoln Nebraska University of Nebraska Press p 5 ISBN 0 8032 6150 0 Bypassing earlier scholarship critics of the past fifty years have generally traced the current era of Beowulf studies back to 1936 and Tolkien s essay Shippey 2005 pp 66 74 Shippey 2005 pp 56 57 Phillip Norman 2005 The Prevalence of Hobbits The New York Times Archived from the original on 11 April 2009 Grand Tours Who Travels the World in a Single Night The Independent on Sunday 22 December 2002 Archived from the original on 21 September 2013 Retrieved 22 November 2012 Artamonova Maria 15 April 2014 Minor Works In Lee Stuart D ed A Companion to J R R Tolkien Wiley Chapter 13 doi 10 1002 9781118517468 ISBN 978 0 470 65982 3 S2CID 160570361 Hammond Wayne G Anderson Douglas A 1993 J R R Tolkien A Descriptive Bibliography New Castle DE Oak Knoll Books ISBN 0 938768 42 5 a b Carpenter 1977 pp 187 208 Oxford Calling The New York Times 5 June 1955 Archived from the original on 11 April 2009 Fimi Dimitra 2020 2014 Later Fantasy Fiction Tolkien s Legacy In Lee Stuart D ed A Companion to J R R Tolkien Wiley Blackwell pp 335 349 ISBN 978 1119656029 Seiler Andy 16 December 2003 Rings comes full circle USA Today Archived from the original on 19 October 2012 BBC The Big Read BBC April 2003 Archived from the original on 31 October 2012 Retrieved 2 November 2012 Cooper Callista 5 December 2005 Epic trilogy tops favorite film poll ABC News Archived from the original on 16 January 2006 O Hehir Andrew 4 June 2001 The book of the century Salon Archived from the original on 13 February 2006 Diver Krysia 5 October 2004 A lord for Germany The Sydney Morning Herald Archived from the original on 17 August 2007 Hammond Wayne G 1993 J R R Tolkien a descriptive bibliography Douglas A Anderson Winchester ISBN 1 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Publishers Weekly 26 May 2014 Archived from the original on 5 September 2014 Flood Alison 12 August 2015 JRR Tolkien s first fantasy story to be published this month The Guardian Archived from the original on 2 December 2016 Flood Alison 19 October 2016 JRR Tolkien s Middle earth love story to be published next year The Guardian Archived from the original on 9 December 2016 Helen Daniel 30 August 2018 The Fall of Gondolin published Tolkien Society Archived from the original on 4 December 2019 Flood Alison 10 April 2018 The Fall of Gondolin new JRR Tolkien book to be published in 2018 The Guardian Archived from the original on 13 April 2018 J R R Tolkien Collection Department of Special Collections and University Archives Marquette University 4 March 2003 Archived from the original on 12 January 1998 McDowell Edwin 4 September 1983 Middle earth Revisited The New York Times Archived from the original on 11 April 2009 Turley Katherine 2 June 2018 Inside a Very Great Story The Tablet pp 20 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74816 9 OCLC 33450124 McIlwaine Catherine 2018 Tolkien Maker of Middle earth Oxford Bodleian Library ISBN 978 1 851 24485 0 Mitchell Christopher J R R Tolkien Father of Modern Fantasy Literature Veritas Forum Archived from the original on 20 June 2009 Drabble Margaret ed 2000 Oxford companion to English Literature 6 ed p 352 Clute John Grant John eds 1999 The Encyclopedia of Fantasy St Martin s Press ISBN 978 0 312 19869 5 Bernardo Susan M 2006 Ursula K Le Guin a critical companion Graham J Murphy Westport Conn Greenwood Press pp 92 93 ISBN 978 0 313 02730 7 OCLC 230345464 The 50 greatest British writers since 1945 The Times 5 January 2008 Archived from the original on 25 April 2011 Weichmann Christian The Lord of the Rings Complete Songs and Poems 4 CD Box The Tolkien Ensemble Archived from the original on 27 October 2016 Retrieved 13 January 2020 Maier Zucchino Evan 23 May 2019 After Nearly 40 Years Video Games Still Don t Do Lord Of The Rings Justice Kotaku Retrieved 13 June 2020 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Blake s new Beatles Sgt Pepper s album cover BBC 11 November 2016 Archived from the original on 3 January 2017 Welk Brian 17 January 2019 J R R Tolkien Biopic With Nicholas Hoult Gets Summer 2019 Release Date Archived from the original on 18 January 2019 Flood Alison 23 April 2019 Tolkien estate disavows forthcoming film starring Nicholas Hoult The Guardian Archived from the original on 23 April 2019 Garth John 2006 World War I In Drout Michael D C ed The J R R Tolkien Encyclopedia Scholarship and Critical Assessment Oxon Routledge p 713 ISBN 978 0 415 96942 0 Archived from the original on 17 May 2007 Jenkins Stephanie Inscriptions J R R Tolkien Headington org Archived from the original on 1 March 2014 Sarehole Mill Blue Plaques Photograph Gallery Archived from the original on 24 May 2007 Duchess Place Blue Plaques Photograph Gallery Archived from the original on 24 May 2007 4 Highfield Road Blue Plaques Photograph Gallery Archived from the original on 24 May 2007 Plough and Harrow Blue Plaques Photograph Gallery Archived from the original on 24 May 2007 J R R Tolkien Open Plaques Archived from the original on 18 January 2021 Retrieved 6 April 2021 J R R Tolkien Philologist and Author Plaques Awarded Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board Archived from the original on 26 May 2021 Retrieved 9 September 2010 Bournemouth s Blue Plaques PDF Bournemouth Borough Council p 15 Archived from the original PDF on 10 December 2014 Celebrating the Life and Work of JRR Tolkien The Royal Mint Retrieved 4 January 2023 a b Saint Tolkien Why This English Don Is on the Path to Sainthood Archived from the original on 30 April 2019 Will Tolkien and Chesterton be declared saints Archived from the original on 30 April 2019 SourcesCarpenter Humphrey 1977 Tolkien A Biography New York Ballantine Books ISBN 978 0 04 928037 3 Tolkien Christopher eds 1981 The Letters of J R R Tolkien London George Allen amp Unwin ISBN 978 0 04 826005 5 Garth John 2003 Tolkien and the Great War Harper Collins ISBN 978 0 00 711953 0 Grotta Daniel 2002 J R R Tolkien Architect of Middle Earth A Biography Running Press ISBN 978 0 7624 1337 9 Lee Stuart D ed 2020 2014 A Companion to J R R Tolkien Wiley Blackwell ISBN 978 1119656029 Shippey Tom 2005 1982 The Road to Middle earth Third ed Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN 978 0 618 25760 7 Further readingA small selection of books about Tolkien and his works Anderson Douglas A Drout Michael D C Flieger Verlyn eds 2004 Tolkien Studies An Annual Scholarly Review Vol I West Virginia University Press ISBN 978 0 937058 87 9 Carpenter Humphrey 1979 The Inklings C S Lewis J R R Tolkien Charles Williams and Their Friends Boston Houghton Mifflin ISBN 978 0 395 27628 0 Chance Jane ed 2003 Tolkien the Medievalist London New York Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 28944 3 ed 2004 Tolkien and the Invention of Myth a Reader Louisville University Press of Kentucky ISBN 978 0 8131 2301 1 Cilli Oronzo Shippey Tom 2019 Tolkien s Library An Annotated Checklist Edinburgh Luna Press ISBN 978 1 911143 67 3 OCLC 1099568978 Smith Arden R Wynne Patrick H Garth John 2017 J R R Tolkien the Esperantist Before the Arrival of Bilbo Baggins Barletta Cafagna ISBN 978 88 96906 33 0 OCLC 1020852373 Costabile Giovanni Carmine 2018 Bilbo Baggins and the Forty Thieves The Reworking of Folktale Motifs in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Mythlore 36 2 132 89 104 ISSN 0146 9339 OCLC 8513422873 Croft Janet Brennan 2004 War and the Works of J R R Tolkien Westport Praegar Publishers ISBN 0 313 32592 8 Curry Patrick 2004 Defending Middle earth Tolkien Myth and Modernity Boston Houghton Mifflin ISBN 978 0 618 47885 9 Drout Michael D C ed 2006 The J R R Tolkien Encyclopedia Scholarship and Critical Assessment New York City Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 96942 0 Duriez Colin 2003 Tolkien and C S Lewis The Gift of Friendship Mahwah New Jersey HiddenSpring ISBN 978 1 58768 026 7 Porter David 2001 The Inklings Handbook The Lives Thought and Writings of C S Lewis J R R Tolkien Charles Williams Owen Barfield and Their Friends London Azure ISBN 978 1 902694 13 9 Flieger Verlyn 2002 Splintered Light Logos and Language in Tolkien s World Kent State University Press ISBN 978 0 87338 744 6 Hostetter Carl F eds 2000 Tolkien s Legendarium Essays on The History of Middle earth Westport CT Greenwood Press ISBN 978 0 313 30530 6 DDC 823 912 LC PR6039 Fonstad Karen Wynn 1991 The Atlas of Middle earth Boston Houghton Mifflin ISBN 978 0 618 12699 6 Foster Robert 2001 The Complete Guide to Middle earth Del Rey ISBN 978 0 345 44976 4 Fredrick Candice McBride Sam 2001 Woman among the Inklings Gender C S Lewis J R R Tolkien and Charles Williams Greenwood Press ISBN 978 0 313 31245 8 Gilliver Peter Marshall Jeremy Weiner Edmund 2006 The Ring of Words Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 861069 4 Glyer Diana Pavlac 2007 The Company They Keep C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien as Writers in Community Kent Ohio Kent State University Press ISBN 978 0 87338 890 0 Grant Patrick 1979 Belief in Fantasy J R R Tolkien s Lord of the Rings Six Modern Authors and Problems of Belief MacMillan ISBN 978 0333263402 Haber Karen 2001 Meditations on Middle earth New Writing on the Worlds of J R R Tolkien St Martin s Press ISBN 978 0 312 27536 5 Harrington Patrick ed 2003 Tolkien and Politics London England Third Way Publications ISBN 978 0 9544788 2 7 Lee Stuart D Solopova Elizabeth 2005 The Keys of Middle earth Discovering Medieval Literature through the Fiction of J R R Tolkien Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978 1 4039 4671 3 Pearce Joseph 1998 Tolkien Man and Myth London HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 00 274018 0 Perry Michael 2006 Untangling Tolkien A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings Seattle Inkling Books ISBN 978 1 58742 019 1 Ready William 1968 Understanding Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings New York Paperback Library Rorabeck Robert 2008 Tolkien s Heroic Quest Crescent Moon ISBN 978 1 86171 239 4 Scull Christina Hammond Wayne G 2017 The J R R Tolkien Companion and Guide Revised and expanded ed London HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 00 821454 8 Shippey Tom 2000 J R R Tolkien Author of the Century Boston New York Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN 978 0 618 12764 1 Strachey Barbara 1981 Journeys of Frodo an Atlas of The Lord of the Rings London Boston Allen amp Unwin ISBN 978 0 04 912016 7 Tolkien John amp Priscilla 1992 The Tolkien Family Album London HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 261 10239 2 Tyler J E A 1976 The Tolkien Companion New York Gramercy ISBN 978 0 517 14648 4 White Michael 2003 Tolkien A Biography New American Library ISBN 978 0 451 21242 9 Zaleski Philip Zaleski Carol 2016 The Fellowship The Literary Lives of the Inklings J R R Tolkien C S Lewis Owen Barfield Charles Williams Farrar Straus and Giroux ISBN 978 0 374 53625 1 External linksJ R R Tolkien at Wikipedia s sister projects Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Data from Wikidata Listen to this article 1 hour and 3 minutes source source This audio file was created from a revision of this article dated 26 January 2022 2022 01 26 and does not reflect subsequent edits Audio help More spoken articles HarperCollins Tolkien Website Additional Resources for J R R Tolkien compiled by the Marion E Wade Center Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 31766 Subscription or UK public library membership required J R R Tolkien at IMDb J R R Tolkien at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database Archival material at Leeds University Library Audio recording of Tolkien from 1929 on a language learning gramophone disc BBC film 1968 featuring Tolkien Biography at the Tolkien Society J R R Tolkien at The Encyclopedia of Fantasy J R R Tolkien at the Internet Book List J R R Tolkien at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Journal of Inklings Studies Peer reviewed journal on Tolkien s literary circle based at Oxford The Tolkien Estate Website Tolkien Maker of Middle earth exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries University of Oxford Works by J R R Tolkien at LibriVox public domain audiobooks Works by J R R Tolkien at Project Gutenberg Works by or about J R R Tolkien at Internet Archive Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title J R R Tolkien amp oldid 1132343954, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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