J.R.R. Tolken

A detailed Summary of J.R.R. Tolken

B. Childhood, Life in South Africa and England

C. Early Adult Life, Tolkien the Linguist

D. Later Adult Life, Tolkien the Professor

A. Early Education, A Love of Languages

B. Later Education, The Road to Oxford

A. The Hobbit: Or, There and Back Again, 1937

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa and was the older of Arthur Reuel and Mabel Suffield Tolkien's two sons. His father's side of the family migrated from Saxony in the 18th century but over the century and a half before his birth they had become thoroughly Anglicized. As for Ronald's mother's side of the family, they had lived in the West Midlands as far as anyone could remember (Doughan). In 1890, when his father was thirty-three, he moved to South Africa from his hometown of Birmingham, a l

Unlike so many of his peers he did not rush off to join the military, instead he got his BA degree first and immediately after his marriage to Edith enlisted to fight in World War I (Magill 1173). He was commissioned as second lieutenant and sent to the Western Front just in time for the Somme offensive. Shortly after his arrival to the Western Front he succumbed to trench fever and shell shock, and was sent back to England (Grace). It was during this time that Ronald and Edith's first child, John, was born. On November 11, 1918 the Armistice was signed and Ronald was already making plans to return to Oxford for his MA degree (Doughan).

After a few failed attempts to show his publisher The Silmarillion, Ronald began work on The Lord of the Rings, which went into printing in 1954 (Doughan). On many occasions he pronounced himself "dead stuck," he despaired of ever completing his tale, and suspected that if he did succeed in that task, the books would never appeal to more than a handful of readers (Taylor). The story had originally been written into six parts but Allen & Uneven wanted one book, they ended up compromising on printing three books and finally in 1955 the last book, The Return of the King, was printed (Coren 90). In this more complex and sophisticated story, the ring that Bilbo finds is given to his nephew Frodo who must carry this burden to Mordor, the place where it must be destroyed. For this heroic romance an "authentic" secondary world, with its own geography, history, lineage, languages, calendars, and customs had to be created. The books were so in-depth that he had his son Christopher drew maps to aid the reader and included an appendix at the end of the final book which included glossaries, maps, genealogical charts, and documentary items (Moritz 416).

In 1911 Ronald attended Exeter College, Oxford where he later mastered Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, the Classics, Old English, the Germanic languages, and Finnish. In June 1915 he achieved a first-class degree and was also working on various languages and poems. This was when he finally created his highest form of Elvish, which is called Qenya (Doughan). At this point, when he finally had time to pick up the threads of his relationship with Edith he discovered she was already engaged. After some difficulty, mainly with religion, he married her in 1916 (Coren 32).

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