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J.R.R. Tolkien

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• The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction - J. R. R. Tolkien
• All Poetry - Biography of J R R Tolkien
• Official Site of The Tolkien Estate Website
• J.R.R. Tolkien - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• J.R.R. Tolkien - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

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J.R.R. Tolkien (born January 3, 1892, Bloemfontein , South Africa—died September 2, 1973, Bournemouth , Hampshire, England) was an English writer and scholar who achieved fame with his children’s book The Hobbit (1937) and his richly inventive epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings (1954–55).

At age four Tolkien, with his mother and younger brother, settled near Birmingham , England , after his father, a bank manager, died in South Africa . In 1900 his mother converted to Roman Catholicism , a faith her elder son also practiced devoutly. On her death in 1904, her boys became wards of a Catholic priest. Four years later Tolkien fell in love with another orphan, Edith Bratt, who would inspire his fictional character Lúthien Tinúviel. His guardian, however, disapproved, and not until his 21st birthday could Tolkien ask Edith to marry him. In the meantime, he attended King Edward’s School in Birmingham and Exeter College, Oxford (B.A., 1915; M.A., 1919). During World War I he saw action in the Somme. After the Armistice he was briefly on the staff of The Oxford English Dictionary (then called The New English Dictionary ).

For most of his adult life, he taught English language and literature , specializing in Old and Middle English , at the Universities of Leeds (1920–25) and Oxford (1925–59). Often busy with academic duties and also acting as an examiner for other universities, he produced few but influential scholarly publications, notably a standard edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1925; with E.V. Gordon) and a landmark lecture on Beowulf ( Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics , 1936). Tolkien had completed a translation of Beowulf in 1926, and it was posthumously published, along with classroom lectures he had given on the subject, some of his notes, and an original short story inspired by the legend , as Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary (2014). He also published an edition of the Ancrene Wisse (1962).

In private, Tolkien amused himself by writing an elaborate series of fantasy tales, often dark and sorrowful, set in a world of his own creation. He made this “legendarium,” which eventually became The Silmarillion , partly to provide a setting in which “Elvish” languages he had invented could exist. But his tales of Arda and Middle-earth also grew from a desire to tell stories, influenced by a love of myths and legends . To entertain his four children, he devised lighter fare, lively and often humorous. The longest and most important of those stories, begun about 1930, was The Hobbit , a coming-of-age fantasy about a comfort-loving “hobbit” (a smaller relative of Man) who joins a quest for a dragon ’s treasure . In 1937 The Hobbit was published, with pictures by the author (an accomplished amateur artist), and was so popular that its publisher asked for a sequel. The result, 17 years later, was Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings , a modern version of the heroic epic . A few elements from The Hobbit were carried over, in particular a magic ring, now revealed to be the One Ring, which must be destroyed before it can be used by the terrible Dark Lord, Sauron, to rule the world. But The Lord of the Rings is also an extension of Tolkien’s Silmarillion tales, which gave the new book a “history” in which Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Men were already established.

Contrary to statements often made by critics, The Lord of the Rings was not written specifically for children, nor is it a trilogy, though it is often published in three parts: The Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers , and The Return of the King . It was divided originally because of its bulk and to reduce the risk to its publisher should it fail to sell. In fact it proved immensely popular. On its publication in paperback in the United States in 1965, it attained cult status on college campuses. Although some critics disparage it, several polls since 1996 have named The Lord of the Rings the best book of the 20th century, and its success made it possible for other authors to thrive by writing fantasy fiction . It had sold more than 50 million copies in some 30 languages by the turn of the 21st century. A film version of The Lord of the Rings by New Zealand director Peter Jackson , released in three installments in 2001–03, achieved worldwide critical and financial success. Jackson then adapted The Hobbit as a trilogy comprising the films An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). In 2004 the text of The Lord of the Rings was carefully corrected for a 50th-anniversary edition.

Several shorter works by Tolkien appeared during his lifetime. These included a mock-medieval story, Farmer Giles of Ham (1949); The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962), poetry related to The Lord of the Rings ; Tree and Leaf (1964), with the seminal lecture “On Fairy-Stories” and the tale “Leaf by Niggle”; and the fantasy Smith of Wootton Major (1967). Tolkien in his old age failed to complete The Silmarillion , the “prequel” to The Lord of the Rings , and left it to his youngest son, Christopher, to edit and publish (1977). Subsequent study of his father’s papers led Christopher to produce Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth (1980); The History of Middle-earth , 12 vol. (1983–96), which traces the writing of the legendarium, including The Lord of the Rings , through its various stages; and The Children of Húrin ( Narn I Chin Hurin: The Tale of the Children of Hurin ), published in 2007, one of the three “Great Tales” of The Silmarillion in longer form. Christopher also edited Beren and Lúthien (2017), which centres on the romance between a man and an elf and was inspired by Tolkien’s relationship with his wife, and The Fall of Gondolín (2018), the third of the “Great Tales,” about an Elvish city resisting the reign of a dark lord; both books contain various retellings of the stories, including the original versions that were written in 1917.

Among other posthumous works by Tolkien are The Father Christmas Letters (1976; also published as Letters from Father Christmas ), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981), the children’s stories Mr. Bliss (1982) and Roverandom (1998), and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (2009), two narrative poems drawn from northern legend and written in the style of the Poetic Edda . The Fall of Arthur (2013) is an unfinished verse exploration of Arthurian legend inspired by the Middle English Morte Arthure .

J.R.R. Tolkien

(1892-1973)

Who Was J.R.R. Tolkien?

J.R.R. Tolkien was an English fantasy author and academic. Tolkien settled in England as a child, going on to study at Exeter College. While teaching at Oxford University, he published the popular fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The works have had a devoted international fan base and been adapted into award-winning blockbuster films.

Early Life and Family

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on January 3, 1892, to Arthur Tolkien and Mabel Suffield Tolkien. After Arthur died from complications of rheumatic fever, Mabel settled with four-year-old Tolkien and his younger brother, Hilary, in the country hamlet of Sarehole, in Birmingham, England.

Mabel died in 1904, and the Tolkien brothers were sent to live with a relative and in boarding homes, with a Catholic priest assuming guardianship in Birmingham. Tolkien went on to get his first-class degree at Exeter College, specializing in Anglo-Saxon and Germanic languages and classic literature.

World War I

Tolkien enlisted as a lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers and served in World War I, making sure to continue writing as well. He fought in the Battle of the Somme, in which there were severe casualties, and was eventually released from duty due to illness. In the midst of his military service, he married Edith Bratt in 1916.

Books: 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings'

The award-winning fantasy novel The Hobbit — about the small, furry-footed Bilbo Baggins and his adventures — was published in 1937, and was regarded as a children’s book, though Tolkien would state the book wasn’t originally intended for children. He also created more than 100 drawings to support the narrative.

Over the years, while working on scholarly publications, Tolkien developed the work that would come to be regarded as his masterpiece — The Lord of the Rings series, partially inspired by ancient European myths, with its own sets of maps, lore and languages.

Tolkien released part one of the series, The Fellowship of the Ring in 1954; The Two Towers and The Return of the King followed in 1955, finishing up the trilogy. The books gave readers a rich literary trove populated by elves, goblins, talking trees and all manner of fantastic creatures, including characters like the wizard Gandalf and the dwarf Gimli.

While Rings had its share of critics, many reviewers and waves upon waves of general readers took to Tolkien’s world, causing the books to become global bestsellers, with fans forming Tolkien clubs and learning his fictional languages.

Tolkien retired from professorial duties in 1959, going on to publish an essay and poetry collection, Tree and Leaf , and the fantasy tale Smith of Wootton Major . His wife Edith died in 1971, and Tolkien died on September 2, 1973, at the age of 81. He was survived by four children.

Legacy and New Adaptations

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series are grouped among the most popular books in the world, having sold tens of millions of copies. The Rings trilogy was also adapted by director Peter Jackson into a highly popular, award-winning trio of films starring Ian McKellen , Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett and Viggo Mortensen , among others. Jackson also directed a three-part Hobbit movie adaptation starring Martin Freeman, which was released from 2012 to 2014.

Tolkien's son Christopher has edited several works that weren't completed at the time of his father's death, including The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin , which were published posthumously. The Art of the Hobbit was published in 2012, celebrating the novel's 75th anniversary by presenting Tolkien's original illustrations.

Underscoring the enduring popularity of Tolkien's famed fantasy world, in November 2017, online retail and entertainment behemoth Amazon announced that it had acquired the TV rights for the book series. In its statement, the company revealed plans to "explore new storylines preceding Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, " with the potential for a spinoff series, thereby exciting fans with the promise of a prequel to the familiar deeds of Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf and the rest.

The author's life was the subject of the 2019 feature Tolkien , a biopic starring Nicholas Hoult and steeped with references to The Lord of the Rings .

QUICK FACTS

• Name: John Ronald Ruel Tolkien
• Birth Year: 1892
• Birth date: January 3, 1892
• Birth City: Bloemfontein
• Birth Country: South Africa
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: J.R.R. Tolkien is an internationally renowned fantasy writer. He is best known for authoring 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy.
• Writing and Publishing
• Fiction and Poetry
• Astrological Sign: Capricorn
• Exeter College
• King Edward's School
• Death Year: 1973
• Death date: September 2, 1973
• Death City: Bournemouth, Dorset
• Death Country: England

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: J.R.R. Tolkien Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/jrr-tolkien
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: September 11, 2019
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it's my wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth.
• Children aren't a class. They are merely human beings at different stages of maturity. All of them have a human intelligence which even at its lowest is a pretty wonderful thing, and the entire world in front of them.
• The hobbits are just what I should like to have been but never was—an entirely unmilitary people who always came up to scratch in a clinch.

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J.R.R. Tolkien

By jake rossen | aug 10, 2020.

AUTHORS (1892–1973); BLOEMFONTEIN, SOUTH AFRICA

There aren't many 20th century authors whose popularity could match that of English fantasy icon J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973). The mind behind The Lord of the Rings and various other works set in Middle-earth has inspired generations of creators and helped establish the high-fantasy genre as one of the most powerful in the marketplace today. He's earned armies of admirers and spawned plenty of imitators over the decades, but few, if any, have managed to rival his accomplishments. For more on Tolkien’s compelling life and work, keep reading.

1. J.R.R. Tolkien was a soldier in World War I.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on January 3, 1892. His family would move to Birmingham, England, in 1896 after his father died, and Tolkien's mother would pass away just a few years after that. From there, Tolkien ended up living with relatives and in boarding homes under the supervision of a priest. He eventually earned a first-class degree at Exeter College in 1915, studying English Language and Literature . Afterwards, he enlisted for duty in the British Army and was placed in the Lancashire Fusiliers infantry regiment during World War I, where he was involved in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Tolkien was released after contracting "trench fever," a bacterial disease carried by lice that causes fever, muscle pain, headaches, and enlargements of the spleen and liver. Before heading into the war, Tolkien married Edith Bratt , whom he had known since he was 16.

2. J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis met at Oxford University.

In 1925 , a 33-year-old Tolkien became a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, notably lecturing on works like Beowulf . There, Tolkien started a writer’s group, The Inklings, where he later fraternized with C.S. Lewis. The future The Chronicles of Narnia author was also a professor, and the two smoothed out some initial dislike to form a friendship. Both men were fascinated by Norse mythology and used their meet-ups with The Inklings to encourage one another to pursue their fiction work.

3. J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t think The Hobbit was a children’s book.

While at Oxford, Tolkien began working on the book that would kick off the Middle-earth saga, The Hobbit , which centers on Bilbo Baggins, a diminutive hero who endures a series of adventures along with a troupe of dwarves and the wizard Gandalf. When the book was published in 1937, it was considered by some to be written for children, though Tolkien said that wasn’t his intention. In a nod to his future efforts offering illustrated maps for his Lord of the Rings saga, Tolkien also created over 100 drawings to add dimension to his first novel.

4. J.R.R. Tolkien’s wife inspired his characters.

Tolkien clearly drew inspiration for his Lord of the Rings series from studying mythology and fantasy fiction. But he also found his muse in his wife, Edith Tolkien. One day, according to a feature on Newsweek , Tolkien watched as Edith danced in a wooded area in Yorkshire. As the war pressed on, Tolkien was soothed by his wife’s grace. Struck by her beauty and elegance, Tolkien began writing a story about an Elvish princess named Lúthien and her love, Beren. The tale was so important to the couple that the characters' names were engraved on their joint headstone.

The story of Beren and Lúthien eventually found its way into The Silmarillion , a collection of tales that gave more detail to the world of Middle-earth. An expanded version, simply titled Beren and Lúthien , was published as its own standalone book in 2017, more than 40 years after Tolkien's death.

5. J.R.R. Tolkien was a terrible driver.

In 1932, Tolkien purchased a Morris Crowley automobile. Because cars were still a relatively new phenomenon, Tolkien had not had much of an opportunity to practice controlling the vehicle. By all accounts, he was a terror behind the wheel, driving on flat tires, crashing into stone walls, and speeding through intersections.

6. J.R.R. Tolkien’s son, Christopher Tolkien, carried on his father’s legacy.

Born in 1924, Christopher Tolkien was said to have assisted in his father’s work at a very early age. As a child, he would point out mistakes in bedtime stories and was tasked with reviewing The Hobbit for errors. Later, Christopher drew the main Middle-earth map for The Lord of the Rings . When J.R.R. Tolkien died in 1973, Christopher became the executor of his father’s estate, seeing to it that unpublished works like The Silmarillion saw the light of day. Christopher passed away in 2020 at the age of 95.

7. The J.R.R. Tolkien movie based on his life was disavowed by his estate.

In 2019, Fox Searchlight released Tolkien , a biopic based on the author's life, starring Nicholas Hoult, from the X-Men franchise, as J.R.R. Tolkien and Lily Collins as wife Edith. The film examines Tolkien’s wartime experiences and his efforts to create his fictional worlds. But the Tolkien estate was unhappy with the movie, saying in a statement that it didn’t approve or authorize it and had no involvement in the production.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth reading order.

Tolkien’s enduring legacy is his Middle-earth saga, which places a heavy focus on the efforts of hobbits Frodo, Sam, and others to confront the Dark Lord Sauron and prevent him from obtaining the One Ring that would give him dominion over the world. The saga grew to encompass several titles beyond The Lord of the Rings and can be read in the order in which they were published:

• The Hobbit (1937)
• The Lord of the Rings; The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (1954)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (1955)
• The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962)
• The Silmarillion (1977, posthumous)
• Unfinished Tales (1980, posthumous)
• The History of Middle-earth (1983-1996, posthumous)
• The Children of Húrin (2007, posthumous)
• Beren and Lúthien (2017, posthumous)
• The Fall of Gondolin (2018, posthumous)

Most Notable J.R.R. Tolkien Quotes:

• “If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it’s my wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth.”
• “Deep roots are not reached by the frost.” (From The Fellowship of the Ring )
• “Courage is found in unlikely places.” (From The Fellowship of the Ring )
• “Not all those who wander are lost.” (From The Fellowship of the Ring )
• “Short cuts make long delays.” (From The Fellowship of the Ring )
• "The war made me poignantly aware of the beauty of the world."

• J.R.R. TOLKIEN & HIS WORKS
• COLLECTING TOLKIEN BOOKS
• ARTICLES & REVIEWS
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Tolkien Biography

• Complete list of works by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Books written by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Books edited, translated, or with contributions by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Books with Published Letters by J.R.R. Tolkien
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• Miscellanea, Tolkien Calendars, Games, Puzzles, Prints, ...
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• Translations of tolkien's work

Philologist, author, mythmaker and creator of "Middle Earth" Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, a brilliant philologist, and a self-described "hobbit," J.R.R. Tolkien created two of the best-loved stories of the 20th century, " The Hobbit " and " The Lord of the Rings ", recently made into a multiple award-winning movie by the director Peter Jackson for New Line Cinema. Early Life John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, to English parents. At the age of three his mother brought him and his younger brother, Hilary, back to England. tolkien's father died soon afterwards in South Africa, so the family stayed in England and by the summer of 1896 his mother found them a home in the hamlet of Sarehole, just outside the city Birmingham. tolkien's family lived in genteel poverty, eventually moving to Moseley a suburb of Birmingham, just north west of Sarehole. When he was 12, tolkien's mother died, and he and his brother were made wards of a Catholic priest. They lived with aunts and in boarding homes thereafter. The dichotomy between tolkien's happier days in the rural landscape of Sarehole and his adolescent years in the industrial centre of Birmingham would be felt strongly in his later works. Education The young Tolkien attended King Edward's School in Birmingham in the years 1910 and 1911, where he excelled in classical and modern languages. There are six known contributions he made in the King Edward's School Chronicle. In 1911 he went to Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied Classics, Old English, Germanic languages, Welsh, and Finnish. He quickly demonstrated an aptitude for philology and began to create his own languages. In 1913 Tolkien published his very first poem, called 'From the many-willow'd margin of the immemorial Thames', in the Stapeldon Magazine of Exeter college. The Great War By the time Tolkien had completed his degree at Oxford in 1915, World War I had erupted across Europe. Tolkien enlisted and was commissioned in the Lancashire Fusiliers, but he did not see active duty for months. In this period he wrote the poem 'Gobin Feet' which got published in ' Oxford Poetry 1915 '. When he learned that he would be shipped out in March 1916, he married his longtime friend Edith Bratt, the girl the poem was written for. Tolkien was sent to the Western Front and fought in the Somme offensive. Almost all of his closest friends were killed. After four months in and out of the trenches, he contracted a typhus-like infection and was sent back to England, where he served for the rest of the war. Academic Career tolkien's first job was as a lexicographer on the New English Dictionary (helping to draft the Oxford English Dictionary). Tolkien wrote 'A Middle English Vocabulary', but it was not published until 1922, but after it was published some copies were bound with 1st impressions of Sisam’s book, 'Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose' which was published one year before. During this time he began serious work on creating languages that he imagined had been spoken by elves. The languages were based primarily on Finnish and Welsh. He also began his "Lost Tales" a mythic history of men, elves, and other creatures he created to provide context for his "Elvish" languages. He made the first public presentation of his tales when he read "The Fall of Gondolin" to an appreciative audience at the Exeter College Essay Club.

Tolkien then became a professor in English Language at the University of Leeds, where he collaborated with E. V. Gordon on the famous edition of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'. Tolkien remained at Leeds until 1925, when he took a position teaching Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. In Leeds Tolkien found the time to make a lot of contributions on various Magazines and books like, Gryphon Magazine, Microcosm, TLS, Yorkshire Poetry, Leeds University Verse, e.o. Tolkien at Oxford Tolkien spent the rest of his career at Oxford, retiring in 1959. Although he produced little by today's "publish or perish" standards, his scholarly writings were of the highest caliber. One of his most influential works is his lecture "Beowulf, the Monsters and the Critics." At Oxford Tolkien became a founding member of a loose group of like-minded Oxford friends "The Inklings" who met for conversation, drinks, and readings from their works-in-progress. Another prominent member was C. S. Lewis, who became one of tolkien's closest friends. Tolkien, a devout Catholic, and Lewis, an agnostic at the time, frequently debated religion and the role of mythology. Unlike Lewis, who tended to dismiss myths and fairy tales, Tolkien firmly believed that they have moral and spiritual value. Said Tolkien, "The imagined beings have their inside on the outside; they are visible souls. And Man as a whole, Man pitted against the Universe, have we seen him at all till we see that he is like a hero in a fairy tale?" "In a hole in the ground . . ." It was also during his years at Oxford that Tolkien would scribble an inexplicable note in a student's exam book: "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit." Curious as to what exactly a "Hobbit" was and why it should live in a hole, he began to build a story about a short creature who inhabited a world called Middle-earth. This grew into a story he told his children, and in 1936 a version of it came to the attention of the publishing firm of George Allen and Unwin (now part of HarperCollins), who published it as The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, in 1937. It become an instant and enduring classic. Lord of the Rings Stanley Unwin, the publisher, was stunned by The Hobbit's success and asked for a sequel, which blossomed into a multivolume epic. While The Hobbit hinted at the history of Middle-earth that Tolkien had created in his "Lost Tales" (which he was now calling "The Silmarillion"), the sequel drew heavily upon it. So determined was Tolkien to get every detail right that it took him more than a decade to complete the 12-book "Lord of the Rings." He often left off writing the story for months to hash out a linguistic problem or historical inconsistency. The Lord of the Rings appeared in 1954-1955 in three parts: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. While the book was eagerly received by the reading public, critical reviews were everything but neutral. Some critics, such as Philip Toynbee, deplored its fantasy setting, archaic language, and utter earnestness. Others, notably W. H. Auden and C. S. Lewis, lauded it for its straightforward narrative, imagination, and tolkien's palpable love of language. The Lord of the Rings did not reach the height of its popularity until it finally appeared in paperback. Tolkien disliked paperbacks and hadn't authorized a paperback edition. In 1965, however, Ace Books exploited a legal loophole and published an unauthorized paperback version of The Lord of the Rings. Within months ballantine published an official version (with a rather cross note about respecting an author's wishes). The lower cost of paperbacks and the publicity generated by the copyright dispute boosted sales of the books considerably, especially in America where it was quickly embraced by the 60s counterculture. Nearly 50 years after its publication, tolkien's epic tale has sold more than 100 million copies and been translated into more than 25 languages. tolkien's Legacy The Lord of the Rings is a singular, contradictory work. Written in an almost archaic form, packed with strange words and obsure historical details, and lacking the modern emphasis on the "inner life," it is unabashedly antimodern. But at the same time its melancholy environmentalism and fully realized alternative world are very modern. It has often been read, among as other things, as an allegory of World War II or the Cold War, but Tolkien himself denied any such interpretation, maintaining it was simply a story to be taken on its own terms. Its enduring appeal, however, lies not in its literary oddness or straightforward action, but in its beautifully realized world and themes of loss, self-sacrifice, and friendship. In its wake, tolkien's work left not only a host of sword-and-sorcery imitators and devoted fans, but a lasting legacy in the hundreds of virtual worlds that have come to life in books and films since. Middle-earth after J.R.R. J.R.R. Tolkien died on September 2, 1973. His death did not mark the end of Middle-earth for readers, though. After tolkien's death his son Christopher endeavored to complete his father's life work. He edited The Silmarillion and saw it published in 1977. In 1980 he began to publish the rest of his father's incomplete writings, culminating in the 12-volume History of Middle-earth series.

• “Biography: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien” 26 Jun 02 Carpenter, Humphrey. J R R Tolkien: A biography. Glasgow, 2002, Harper Collins.
• Carpenter, Humphrey. The Inklings: C S Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and their friends. Glasgow, 1997, Harper Collins.
• Hammond, Wayne G and Christina Scull. J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. London, 1998, Harper Collins.
• The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Humphrey Carpenter. Glasgow, 1995, Harper Collins.

Photo Credits:

• John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: Carpenter, Humphrey. J R R Tolkien: A biography.  Photo by Billy Porter
• Edith Bratt: Carpenter, Humphrey. J R R Tolkien: A biography. Edith Bratt in 1906, age seventeen.
• J R R and his children: Carpenter, Humphrey. J R R Tolkien: A biography. Family group in the garden at Northmoor Road circa 1936.

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• The True Story Behind the Movie <I>Tolkien</i>

The True Story Behind the Movie Tolkien

F rom a fellowship of school-age adventurers to the hellish landscape of the Battle of the Somme, the early life of J. R. R. Tolkien in many ways parallels the acclaimed fantasy novels that would make him one of the best-known writers of the 20th century. But in the mythical narratives of The Hobbit and the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings , a reader might either see an author taking inspiration from his memories or attempting to escape them.

Tolkien, a new biopic from director Dome Karukoski in theaters May 10, portrays the events of those early years. Starring Nicholas Hoult ( X-Men: Apocalypse ) as the young Tolkien and Lily Collins ( Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile ) as his future wife Edith Bratt, the movie shows the young writer’s friendships during his formative years, as well as his experiences on the front lines during the First World War, presenting them as inspiration for his works to come.

The movie was produced without the cooperation of the Tolkien family and estate, which said in a statement to TIME that it “did not approve of, authorize or participate in the making of this film.” Fox Searchlight Pictures, the movie’s distributor, explains that Karukoski conducted extensive research prior to filming, consulting experts as well as a wealth of public archival resources.

Here’s where the movie hews to reality and where it wanders into fantasy in depicting the life of J. R. R. Tolkien.

Was Tolkien born in Africa and later orphaned?

Yes. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on Jan. 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, which was then part of the Orange Free State before it was later annexed by the British, eventually becoming part of South Africa. Tolkien’s parents were British — his father Arthur Reuel Tolkien was a bank manager, and his mother Mabel Suffield Tolkien had been a missionary in Zanzibar. Tolkien’s father died in Africa when he was young, after which his mother took him and his brother to live in England.

Mabel died in 1904, leaving her sons in the care of a Catholic priest in Birmingham, as depicted in Tolkien, but not before enrolling the young Tolkien at Birmingham’s King Edward’s School, where he would meet some of his closest friends.

Did Tolkien form a literary society while in school?

In the film, Tolkien enters school and befriends the headmaster’s son as well as a group of literary young men who meet for tea to discuss art and ideas after classes. That “fellowship” helps spur Tolkien’s passion for literature and languages.

The real Tolkien did form a literary society with a group of school friends, just like in the movie. Dubbing themselves the “T.C.B.S.” for “Tea Club, Barrovian Society,” the group took its name from the members’ habit of meeting for tea at the Barrow Stores, according to the Tolkien Society . In the years after they graduated, the members of the group remained close and continued to write to each other and exchange literary work.

What were the circumstances under which Tolkien fell in love with Edith Bratt?

The film also hews closely to the general facts of Tolkien’s relationship with Edith Bratt. As in the movie, Bratt and Tolkien lived in the same boarding house, and when Tolkien was 16 and Bratt 19, they began dating. Tolkien’s guardian, Father Francis, eventually told Tolkien that he was forbidden to communicate with Bratt until he was 21, an order which put a stop to their relationship, at least for awhile.

What were Tolkien’s experiences fighting in WWI and the Battle of the Somme?

In the movie, Tolkien is shown stumbling through the trenches at the Somme, trying desperately to find one of his boyhood friends. Though the specific events of the battle were likely fictionalized in the film, Tolkien did in fact serve on the western front and fight in the Battle of the Somme. Just as in Tolkien , two of the four members of the T.C.B.S. were killed during the war, and Tolkien himself was sickened by “trench fever” and sent back to recover in England, according to the Tolkien Society.

Did Tolkien rekindle his relationship with Bratt after returning from war?

In the film, Tolkien and Bratt encounter each other again just before Tolkien is sent to join the fighting on the western front. When he returns, waking up in a hospital in England, he finds Bratt waiting for him.

The real story played out a bit differently. According to the Tolkien Society, the young Tolkien actually wrote to Bratt on his 21st birthday when he was still studying at Oxford, and they became engaged soon after. By the time Tolkien was fighting in the Battle of the Somme, he and Bratt were already married.

When did Tolkien write The Hobbit , and what inspired him to write it?

After returning from the war, Tolkien eventually became a professor at Oxford, where he gave lectures on philology . At the end of the movie, the professor sits down to begin writing what would become his signature fantasy series.

Tolkien actually did write The Hobbit while a professor at Oxford, though his real impetus for beginning the project may have been as much pure boredom as artistic inspiration. The author has said that the first memorable line of The Hobbit came to him while he was grading a stack of exam papers.

“I remember picking up a paper and nearly gave it an extra mark, or extra five marks actually, because one page on this particular paper was left blank,” Tolkien told the BBC in 1968. “Glorious! Nothing to read.”

“So I scribbled on it, I can’t think why, ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’.”

Correction, May 16, 2019

The original version of this story misstated the chronology of Tolkien’s attending King Edward’s School. He began attending the school before his mother died, not after.

Correction, Feb. 21, 2020

The original version of this story also misstated what kind of school King Edward’s School in England is. It is an independent school, not a state grammar school.

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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3rd January 1892 in Bloemfontein, in the Orange Free State (now South Africa), to Arthur and Mabel Tolkien. His parents, both originally from Birmingham, had moved to South Africa so that Arthur could pursue his career in banking. When Tolkien was three years old, his mother took him and his younger brother Hilary to visit their family in England. The visit became permanent when his father died unexpectedly in South Africa. Mabel settled with her two young sons in Sarehole, a small village just outside Birmingham, which was later to inspire the Shire in Tolkien’s writings.

Tolkien won a scholarship to the prestigious King Edward VI School in Birmingham when he was eight years old and the family moved back to the city for the remainder of his school-days. He excelled in languages studying French, German, Latin and Greek and also taking an interest in Old English, Middle English and Gothic. Unfortunately his mother developed diabetes when he was twelve years old and her health began to deteriorate rapidly. Mabel was a recent convert to Catholicism and she arranged for Father Francis Morgan, a sympathetic Catholic priest, to become the boys’ guardian. She died within the year and although Ronald and his younger brother Hilary were now orphans, Father Francis maintained daily contact with them and gave them love and financial support for the rest of his life.

At school Tolkien found a group of like-minded friends: Geoffrey Smith, Chris Wiseman and Rob Gilson were all precociously talented, in literature, mathematics and drawing respectively. They gathered in the school library illicitly brewing mugs of tea and when they were discovered and ejected, they decamped to Barrows department store where they could drink tea and continue their discussions uninterrupted. The Tea Club and Barrovian Society, or T.C.B.S. for short, was formed. These young men were drawn into close comradeship by a common desire to create something of beauty in the world but within a few years their dreams would be shattered by the war.

Tolkien applied to study Classics (Literae Humaniores, also known as Greats) at Oxford and on his second attempt he won a scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford, matriculating in 1911. After two years of fairly lax study, he was given permission to change from Classics to English, so that he could pursue his growing interest in Germanic philology, and more specifically Old Norse, Old English and Middle English. In the same year, 1913, he was reunited with Edith Bratt, a fellow orphan whom he had met in shared lodgings in Birmingham. Initially Tolkien’s guardian had tried to extinguish their youthful romance. Fearing that a relationship would distract Tolkien from his studies, he had banned any contact between them for three years. As soon as Tolkien reached his twenty-first birthday and the prohibition was lifted, he wrote to Edith and they became engaged within a week.

World War 1

The renewal of their relationship gave him a new focus and he worked harder at his studies, graduating with a first class degree in June 1915. He immediately enlisted in the army, taking a commission in the Lancashire Fusiliers where he hoped to be placed in the same battalion as his school-friend, Geoffrey Smith. After training for a year in Staffordshire and Yorkshire, he qualified as a signalling officer. Aware of the approaching danger, he and Edith married in March 1916 and three months later he was sent to France for the start of the Somme offensive. He saw first-hand the horrors of trench warfare and the utter destruction of man, beast and landscape. Five months later he was sent back to England on a hospital ship suffering from trench fever. He was plagued by this recurring condition for the next two years and spent long periods in hospital, punctuated by stints of defensive duty on the east coast. It was during this time that he began to write down ‘The Lost Tales’, a series of heroic tales of the Elves from a far-distant time. These stories were the forerunner of The Silmarillion , his epic history of Elves and Men and Gods, which occupied him throughout his life and from which The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings eventually sprang. He may have been driven to write these stories down by the proximity of death. Certainly by the time the war ended Rob Gilson and Geoffrey Smith of the T.C.B.S. were dead, along with many of Tolkien’s university friends. Shortly before he died Geoffrey Smith had exhorted Tolkien to pursue the ideals they shared, ‘may you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them, if such be my lot.’

Early career

With a wife and young son to support, he returned to Oxford at the end of the war and found employment working on the Oxford English Dictionary as a lexicographer. A year later in 1920, he gained his first academic position as Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, becoming a professor there four years later. His Middle English Vocabulary , written for students using Kenneth Sisam’s Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose , was published in 1922 and his edition of the medieval romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , co-edited with Eric Gordon, was published in 1925. In the same year he returned to Oxford as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a fellow of Pembroke College. For the next twenty years he taught Old English, Old Norse, Gothic and Germanic philology to undergraduates, supervised postgraduate research and pursued his own academic research. His British Academy lecture, ‘Beowulf: the monsters and the critics’ delivered in 1937, was a ground-breaking work which overturned decades of critical thought on this Old English epic poem. Another lecture, ‘On Fairy-stories’, delivered at St Andrew’s in 1939, set out to define fantasy and later came to be recognized as his justification for writing fantasy literature.

The Inklings

At Oxford Tolkien met C.S. Lewis, a colleague in the English Faculty. They soon discovered a shared love of northern myths and legends and would converse late into the night, ‘of the gods & giants & Asgard’. They were invited to attend meetings of an undergraduate club called the Inklings and when the club later foundered, they attached the name to a group of their own friends who met in pubs or college rooms to read aloud their works-in-progress, to drink, talk and debate. The Inklings, and C.S. Lewis in particular, would become crucial in encouraging Tolkien to finish his great work.

In his spare time he continued to work on his legendarium; sketching out thousands of years of history, inventing languages, writing stories, plotting maps and painting landscapes. He also made up stories for his four children: John (born 1917), Michael (born 1920), Christopher (born 1924) and Priscilla (born 1929). Some of these stories were written down and illustrated, and one of them, The Hobbit , found its way to a publisher’s assistant who persuaded Tolkien to submit it for publication. It was published by George Allen & Unwin in 1937 with Tolkien’s own illustrations, maps and dust jacket design. The first print run sold out in three months and it became a perennial children’s classic.

The Lord of the Rings

The success of The Hobbit led his publisher, Stanley Unwin, to ask for more about hobbits. Tolkien submitted instead some of the unfinished prose and verse tales from ‘The Silmarillion’ but when these were roundly rejected, he sat down to write a Hobbit sequel. The story quickly outgrew its original form as a children’s story and burgeoned into an epic fantasy tale for adults. It took twelve years to complete, at the end of which Tolkien reflected, somewhat ruefully, that he had produced a ‘monster: an immensely long, complex, rather bitter, and very terrifying romance, quite unfit for children’. The work, The Lord of the Rings , was both a sequel to The Hobbit and to his unpublished legendarium, ‘The Silmarillion’. In fact the works were so closely related in Tolkien’s mind that he decided The Lord of the Rings could only be published in conjunction with the, as yet unfinished, ‘Silmarillion’. His publisher baulked at the idea and lengthy negotiations with a rival publisher, Collins, also stalled. Three years later Tolkien wrote a chastened letter to George Allen & Unwin, declaring, ‘better something than nothing’. The huge size of the work and doubts as to its potential readership were major concerns but Rayner Unwin (son of Sir Stanley) was convinced of its merits and decided to publish it even if the firm suffered a financial loss. It appeared in three volumes between 1954 and 1955. Literary critics were divided over its merits but sales far outstripped both the publisher’s and the author’s expectations and it has continued to sell in astonishing numbers and to be translated into an ever-increasing number of languages.

Later career

In 1945, while still struggling to finish The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien was elected Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford. His academic focus now switched from Old to Middle English and he had to prepare an entirely new set of lectures and seminars for texts that he had not taught since 1925. In the same year he published a short allegorical story, Leaf, by Niggle , which reflected some of his own concerns that The Lord of the Rings would never be completed. A few years later he published another short story, the comic tale of Farmer Giles of Ham , illustrated by Pauline Baynes. He retired in 1959 having served as a professor at Oxford for thirty-four years.

In retirement Tolkien hoped to complete ‘The Silmarillion’, which he had been working on for over forty years, and for which his publisher (and his readers) were now clamouring. However the success of The Lord of the Rings created its own workload and he was constantly called on to answer fan mail, give interviews and make appearances. He also had academic work to complete and his long-awaited edition of Ancrene Wisse , a medieval prose work, was finally published in 1962. In the same year he published a volume of poetry from Middle-earth, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. A short fairy tale, Smith of Wootton Major, was published in 1967, described by Tolkien as ‘An old man’s book already weighted with the presage of “bereavement”‘, and in 1968 he collaborated with the composer Donald Swann to produce a songbook, The Road Goes Ever On .

He and Edith moved from Oxford to Bournemouth in 1968, hoping that in relative seclusion he would be able to complete his life’s work. Edith’s health was already failing though and she died in November 1971 leaving Tolkien bereft after fifty-five years of marriage. He returned to Oxford to live in a flat owned by Merton College but the completion of ‘The Silmarillion’ proved too great a task for him. He died on 2nd September 1973, aged eighty-one, while visiting friends in Bournemouth and is buried in Oxford alongside his beloved wife Edith. Their gravestone is marked with the additional names, Beren and Lúthien, whose love defeated the Dark Lord and overcame death itself in the First Age of Middle-earth.

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Biography Online

Biography of J.R.R Tolkien

Early life J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien was born in 1892, Bloemfontein, South Africa. After three years in South Africa, he returned to England with his Mother Mabel; unfortunately, his father died one year later, leaving him with little memory of his father. His early childhood was, by all accounts, a happy one; he was brought up in the Warwickshire countryside (many regard this idealised upbringing as the basis for the Shire in Lord of the Rings).

In 1904, when John was just 12, his mother Mabel died from diabetes leaving a profound mark on him and his brother. After his mother’s passing, he was brought up by the family’s Catholic priest, Father Francis Morgen. From an early age, J.R.R. Tolkien was an excellent scholar, with an unusually specialised interest in languages. He enjoyed studying languages especially Greek, Anglo Saxon, and later at Oxford, Finnish.

J.R.R.Tolkien in Oxford

J.R.R.Tolkien and the First World War

At the outbreak of the First World War, J.R.R. Tolkien decided to finish off his degree before enlisting in 1916. Joining the Lancashire Fusiliers, he made it to the Western Front just before the great Somme offensive. At first hand, J.R.R. Tolkien witnessed the horrors and carnage of the “Great War”; he lost many close friends, tellingly he remarked “By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead ”. J.R.R. Tolkien survived, mainly due to the persistent re-occurrence of trench fever, which saw him invalided back to England.  He rarely talked about his experiences directly, but the large-scale horrors of war will undoubtedly have influenced his writings in some way. Perhaps the imagery for the wastelands of Mordor may have had a birth in the muddy horrors of the Western Front.

It was back in England, in 1917, that J.R.R Tolkien began working on his epic – “ The Silmarillion “. The Silmarillion lies at the heart of all Tolkien’s mythology, it is a work he continually revised until his death in 1973. The Silmarillion makes hard reading, in that, it is not plot driven, but depicts the history of a universe, through an almost biblical overview. It moves from the Creation of the Universe to the introduction of evil and the rebellion of the Noldor. It is in The Silmarillion that many roots from the Lord of the Rings stem. It gives the Lord of the Rings the impression of a real epic. It becomes not just a story, but also the history of an entire world and peoples.

Writing the Hobbit

Initially, J.R.R Tolkien’s writings on The Silmarillion were known by very few. He found his time absorbed in teaching and other duties of being a professor. He also found time to write important papers on medieval literature. These included seminal works on, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , and Beowulf . In 1945, he was given the Merton professorship and gained additional duties of teaching and lecturing.

It was sometime after 1930 that Tolkien gained an unexpected inspiration to start writing the Hobbit. It was whilst marking an examination paper that he jotted in the margins of a paper the immortal words; “In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit.” Unlike the Silmarillion , The Hobbit was a simple fairy tale and adventure for children. Hinting at evil things, it still ends in a happy ending for all and is primarily concerned with a triumph of good over evil. In the course of the next few years friends, including C.S. Lewis , read his manuscript and gave good reviews. In the course of time, the publisher Allen and Unwin were sent a copy. Rayner, the 10-year-old son of Mr Unwin, gave a glowing reference and the Hobbit was published in 1937 to great commercial success.

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis

J.R.R.Tolkien was good friends with C.S. Lewis and together they were key members of the ‘Inklings’ an informal Oxford literary club, where writers met together to read out poetry and short stories. Tolkien had a strong Catholic faith throughout his life; he often discussed religion with C.S.Lewis. Lewis later said that his conversations with Tolkien were a key factor in his decision to embrace Christianity. However, their relationship cooled over the years. There was a little friction over C.S.Lewis relationship with Joy Davidson, but they remained firm friends and C.S.Lewis was always a stout literary defender of Tolkien’s work. (Though Tolkien was somewhat less enthusiastic about the work of C.S.Lewis.)

Lord of the Rings

Due to the sheer scope and length of the book, the publishers Allen and Unwin were wary of publication. They worried about whether it would be a commercial success. Eventually, they decided to publish the book, but split it up into six sections; they also offered no payment to J.R.R Tolkien, until the book moved into profit. The first edition was published in 1954 and soon became a good seller. However, it was in 1965 when the book was published in America, that it really took off becoming an international bestseller. Somehow the book managed to capture the mood of the 1960s counterculture, and it became immensely popular on American campuses. Tolkien became a household name, and The Lord of the Rings would soon become renowned as the most popular book of all time.

Although the book has received the most powerful popular acclaim, it has not always received the same commendation from the literary world. In 1972, Oxford University conferred on Tolkien the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters. This was not for his writing, but his researches on linguistic studies. Tolkien, however, would have taken no offence at this award. For Tolkien, his linguistic studies were as important if not more so than his fictional literary endeavours.

He did not particularly enjoy the fame that came from his literary success, and in 1968 he moved to Poole to gain a little more privacy. Speaking of his own simple tastes he described his similarity to hobbits.

“I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much.”

– Letter to Deborah Webster (25 October 1958)

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of J.R.R. Tolkien”, Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net , Published 1st Feb 2009. Last updated 30th January 2017.

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien at Amazon

The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit

William Caxton and Early Printing in England at Amazon

Related Pages

• J.R.R.Tolkien Quotes
• Why is the Lord of the Rings so Popular?
• The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Humphrey Carpenter. Glasgow, 1995, Harper Collins.
• “Biography: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien” 26 Jun 02 Carpenter, Humphrey. J R R Tolkien: A biography. Glasgow, 2002, Harper Collins.

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography is a biography book by Humphrey Carpenter . It is the official, authorized biography of J.R.R. Tolkien . First published in 1977 , It has been reprinted many times since.

The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey writes that even though the biography came out before most of the posthumous publications edited by Christopher Tolkien, "it has worn very well", telling of Tolkien's "sad and traumatic youth", and providing good coverage of his dealings with C. S. Lewis and his publishers. [1]

The book contains a large number of previously unpublished extracts from letters, poems, and other writings by Tolkien, along with a reproduction of a manuscript page from The Lord of the Rings .

From the publisher

The authorized biography of the creator of Middle-earth. In the decades since his death in September 1973, millions have read The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings , and The Silmarillion and become fascinated about the very private man behind the books. Born in South Africa in January 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was orphaned in childhood and brought up in near-poverty. He served in the first World War , surviving the Battle of the Somme , where he lost many of the closest friends he'd ever had. After the war he returned to the academic life, achieving high repute as a scholar and university teacher, eventually becoming Merton Professor of English at Oxford where he was a close friend of C.S. Lewis and the other writers known as The Inklings . Then suddenly his life changed dramatically. One day while grading essay papers he found himself writing 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit' — and worldwide renown awaited him. Humphrey Carpenter was given unrestricted access to all Tolkien's papers, and interviewed his friends and family. From these sources he follows the long and painful process of creation that produced The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and offers a wealth of information about the life and work of the twentieth century's most cherished author.

• Bloemfontein
• 'Private lang.' - and Edith
• 'T.C., B.S., etc'
• The breaking of the fellowship
• Oxford interlude
• Northern venture
• Oxford life
• Photographs observed
• 'He had been inside language'
• Northmoor Road
• The storyteller
• Enter Mr Baggins
• 'The new Hobbit'
• Slamming the gates
• Cash or kudos
• Bournemouth
• Merton Street
• VIII. The Tree
• A. Simplified genealogical table
• B. Chronology of events
• C. The published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien
• D. Sources and acknowledgments

Publication history and gallery

1977 hardcover

1978 paperback

1978 paperback alternative cover

1987 paperback

1995 paperback

1995 paperback 2nd impression

2002 paperback

2016 paperback

• George Allen and Unwin hardcover ( 1977 ), pp. 304. ISBN 0049280376
• Unwin Paperbacks paperback ( 1978 ), ISBN 0049280392
• Unwin Paperbacks paperback ( 1987 ), ISBN 0049280708
• 1995 paperback edition, 2nd impression ( 1998 )
• HarperCollins paperback ( 2002 ), ISBN 0007132840
• HarperCollins paperback ( 2016 ), ISBN 0008207771

Rejection of the first draft

In a BBC interview with Martin Wainwright in 2003 , Carpenter confirmed that Christopher Tolkien rejected the first draft of the biography believing it to be a very boring to read. Carpenter assumed that this was due to the number of letters quoted. [2]

• The Inklings (book)
• Tolkien and the Great War
• Tolkien at Exeter College
• ↑ Tom Shippey's top 10 books on JRR Tolkien (accessed 12 June 2022)
• ↑ " BBC Radio 4, Custodians of the World ", BBC News (accessed 13 September 2014)

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Professor J.R.R. Tolkien C.B.E. was a renowned scholar of the English language best remembered for his works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , which have become two of the most well-known, best-loved and biggest-selling books of all time.

This section contains biographical and bibliographical information together with answers to frequent questions.

A short outline of Tolkien’s life

A chronology of Tolkien’s life

A full bibliography

A suggested critical reading list

Answers to frequent enquiries

Resources for teachers of Tolkien

Resources for students of Tolkien