Anatine
J. R. R. Tolkien Profile

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Keynotes

  Born:  Bloemfontein, South Africa, 3rd January 1892.

  Died:  Bournemouth, England, 2nd September 1973.

  J. R. R. Tolkien was known as 'Ronald' to his family and friends.  He was born in Bloemfontein in South Africa, where his father, Arthur Tolkien, had gone to work in a bank.

  Ronald's mother was Mabel Suffield, who was from the English West Midlands.  Her poor health caused her to return to England with Ronald and his younger brother, Hilary, in 1895.  They had planned to return to South Africa, but in February 1896 Arthur Tolkien died, and Mabel and the two boys stayed in the West Midlands.

  Ronald attended school in Birmingham at King Edward's School where he studied the classics and took a particular interest in Middle English and Anglo-Saxon.

  In 1904 his mother died, and Ronald and Hilary were cared for by family members and a kindly priest.

  Tolkien developed his interest in languages further when he studied at Exeter College, Oxford, from where he graduated in 1915 with a first-class honours degree in English Language and Literature.

  He married his childhood sweetheart, Edith Bratt, in 1916, and later that year accepted a commission with the Lancashire Fusiliers.  The First World War was well underway, and Tolkien was sent to the front where fought in the Battle of the Somme.  He was invalided out of the army due to trench fever in November 1916, and spent several weeks in a hospital in Birmingham.

  After the war, Tolkien worked as an assistant lexicographer on the Oxford English Dictionary.

  In 1920 he was appointed Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds.

  Tolkien became Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University in 1925, and in 1945 he was appointed Professor of English Language and Literature, a post he held until 1959.

  Following his retirement in 1959, Ronald and Edith moved to Bournemouth in Dorset.

  In 1972 he was made a CBE, and later that year he received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Oxford University.

Works with publication dates:

Chaucer as a Philologist (1936)
Beowulf: The Monsters and Critics (1936)
The Hobbit (1937)
The Lord of the Rings (1954 - 55)
  A trilogy consisting of:
    The Fellowship of the Ring
    The Two Towers
    The Return of the King
The Silmarillion (1977)

 
 

Links

The Tolkien Society
http://www.tolkiensociety.co.uk/index.html

Tolkien in Oxford
http://www.jrrtolkien.org.uk/

Guardian Unlimited - JRR Tolkien
http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,5917,-131,00.html

Tolkien Enterprises
http://www.tolkien-ent.com/

The Millennium Library - J R R Tolkien
http://www.millenniumlibrary.co.uk/millib/reference/
notes.php?entry=J+R+R+Tolkien&fromdb=2

BBCi - JRR Tolkien
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/books/author/tolkien/

1UpInfo - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
http://www.1upinfo.com/encyclopedia/T/Tolkien.html

Planet Tolkien - a fan site
http://www.planet-tolkien.com/

A selection of books by J. R. R. Tolkien available from W.H. Smith:
 

The Hobbit, Graphic Novel  (paperback)

The Hobbit  (hardback)

The Silmarillion (paperback)

The Silmarillion (hardback)

Silmarillion Gift Pack

The Silmarillion (leatherbound)

The Lord of the Rings (hardback)

The Lord of the Rings (leatherbound)

Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

Letters from Father Christmas

The Complete History of Middle-Earth Boxed Set Reissue