John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is remembered for his lasting contribution to academia especially to English literature. The scholar lived through two world wars and created a setting and a language of his own for the tales which have become some of the most celebrated fantasies and literary works of the 19th century, and a profound inspiration to many modern artists.

Family

Tolkien was born in South Africa in 1892 when his father, Arthur Reuel Tolkien, was head of the British bank in Free State. At three, he traveled to England with his mother, Mabel Suffield and brother for a long visit which ended up in a permanent stay.

His father died later in South Africa, and Mabel took the kids to their grandparents in Kings Heath, then later to Hall Green where Mabel raised them until her death in 1904. Father Francis Xavier Morgan was then entrusted to raise Tolkien and his brother the catholic way in Birmingham.

Tolkien met 19-year old Edith Mary Brat when he was 16, and after initial attempts by Francis Xavier to separate the young lovers, they were married for life in 1916 and had four children; the third born, Christopher John, became his literary executor and also worked on most of Tolkien’s unfinished works.

Edith passed on in 1971, and Tolkien in 1973: they were buried in the same grave in Oxford.

Education

By age four, Tolkien could read and write, and his mother taught him Latin and botany at home, while he developed interest in languages and drawing landscapes. He co-invented the Animalic and Nevbosh languages with some cousins, and later constructed his own artificial language called Naffarin.

He studied at King Edward’s School and St. Philip’s School; the former granted him scholarship to return in 1903. A decade later he graduated in English Language and Literature from Exeter College at Oxford.

Tolkien in World Wars

When Britain joined in the World War I in 1914, Tolkien volunteered in the army after he had finished his degree, where he was enlisted in the Lancashire Fusiliers as a lieutenant.

Inspired by his experiences during the war, he wrote “The Lonely Isle” poem and “The Book of Lost Tales”. He took part in some of the major war events as the Battle of Somme and the Capture of Schwaben Redoubt, Regina Trench and Leipzig Salient.

In 1939, he trained in code-breaking and cryptographies at the Government Code and Cyber School to enable him serve in the World War II but he was denied enlistment later that year.

Academic Lectures

By the turn of 1920 Tolkien had private lectures for undergraduates, mostly in Lady Margaret Hall and St. Hugh’s Colleges.

After he was relieved of the World War I in 1920, he was employed as an etymologist at the Oxford English Dictionary, and in the same year, as an academic staff at the University of Leeds, he authored “A Middle English Vocabulary” and collaborated with E. V. Gordon on a translated edition of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”.

He was welcomed to Oxford in 1925 as a professor of Anglo-Saxon and as associate professor at Pembroke College. From 1945, he worked at the Melton College as a professor of English Language and Literature, and also as external examiner for NUI Galway, formerly University College of Galway.

“The Jerusalem Bible” version also had Tolkien as translator and consultant mostly for the “Book of Jonah” during his retirement.

Major Writings

Tolkien wrote a collection of mythopoeic stories titled, “Quenta Simarillion”- translated as “The History of the Silmarils” which was edited and published by Christopher Tolkien in 1977 as “The Simarillion”.

After a translation of the epic poem, “Beowulf” in 1926, he followed up with a lecture on his own edition “Beowulf: The Monsters and The Critics” in the late 1930s which subsequently had important influence on his latter fictions.

Tolkien claimed that he wrote the words, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” on a blank page he found when marking examination papers earlier in 1930, and with this he set to write the juvenile fantasy novel “The Hobbit” (1937) initially to entertain his children, and was published by George Allen & Unwin in 1936.

The success of “The Hobbit” prompted him to write another fantasy, but it turned out to be his most celebrated 3-volume fantasy novel, “The Lord of the Rings” (1954 – 1955). The complete volumes, “The Fellowship of the Ring”, “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King” were published in mid-1950 and became one of the bestselling fantasies in the next two decade.

Many of his writings were in unpublished fragments until, after his death, Christopher edited and compiled for publishing from the 1980s. Such compilations included “The Unfinished Tales”, “the History of Middle-Earth” and “The Fall of Gondolin”.

Influence

Tolkien created a setting for his writings which he called “Middle-Earth”, inspired by various ancient literatures, archaeology, mythology as well as his personal beliefs and experiences. Many of the locations in his writings bore real-life names such as Bag End, and the general settings like Shire and Mordor were inspired by real life locations and personal encounters.

Why is Tolkien considered the father of fantasy?

Legacy and Honors

“The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Ring” became a major influence on modern fantasy writers, and have been adapted into films and video games set in Middle-earth by such production firms as Amazon, Newline Cinema and Warner Bros.

Again, many of his fictitious creations have famous landmarks such as the Aragorn, Gandalf and Shadowfax mountains in Canada named after them, as well as scientific names typically the names of some species of “Elachista” moths.

In 1972, he was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace. That same year, he also received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University.

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