J.R.R. Tolkien

The South African-born man who wrote one of the most popular book series in the world

J.R.R. Tolkien is known as one of the most famous writers in history, responsible for books like The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but his own story started over 130 years ago, in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

Written by Kirsten Minnaar

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in 1892 in Bloemfontein, in the Free State, which was then known as the Orange Free State, province of South Africa.

His parents, Arthur and Mabel Tolkien, had moved from Birmingham to South Africa so his father could pursue a career in banking.

When Tolkien was three years old, his mother took him and his brother to visit their family in England. However, when his father died unexpectedly in South Africa, his mother decided not to return home.

Instead, they settled in Sarehole, a small village near Birmingham. This area would later inspire the fictional village of the Shire in Tolkien’s writings.

Tolkien was a clever child, and he won a scholarship to the prestigious King Edward VI School in Birmingham at the age of eight, which prompted his family to relocate to the city.

He particularly excelled in his study of languages, which included French, Latin, Greek, and German. He even took an interest in Old English, Middle English, and Gothic.

Unfortunately, tragedy struck Tolkien’s family when, at 12 years old, his mother developed diabetes. As her health rapidly deteriorated, Mabel, who had recently converted to Catholicism, asked a sympathetic priest to look after her children.

She passed away within the year, but the priest kept his word and looked after the Tolkien boys, providing them with care and financial support for the rest of his life.

Despite the hardships he had faced, Tolkien managed to find a group of like-minded and talented friends at school who shared interests in literature, mathematics and drawing.

Tolkien went on to study Classics at Exeter College in Oxford, where he won a scholarship. After two years of study, he was permitted to change his field to English, allowing him to pursue his growing interest in Germanic philosophy.

He was particularly interested in Old Norse, Old English and Middle English. In 1913, he was reunited with Edith Bratt, another orphan he had met in a shared home in Birmingham.

Tolkien’s guardian had banned any contact between the two, fearing that the young romance would interfere with his studies.

As soon as Tolkien turned 21 and this prohibition was lifted, though, he immediately wrote a letter to Bratt and the pair were engaged within the week. Unfortunately, young love wasn’t the only thing brewing.

Across the world, a war was breaking out. When Tolkien graduated in 1915, he immediately enlisted in the army. He took commission in the Lancashire Fusiliers, and after a year of training, he qualified as a signalling officer.

Aware of the impending danger, Tolkien and Bratt got married in March 1916, and three months later, he was sent to France for the start of the Battle of the Somme.

After five months, he was sent back to England on the hospital ship due to suffering from trench fever, an infectious disease which causes fever, headache, and pain.

Tolkien suffered from this condition for the next two years. During this time, he spent long periods in the hospital between stints of defensive fighting on the East Coast.

This is when he began writing The Lost Tales, a collection of stories about elves from a distant time, which later formed the basis for The Silmarillion.

After the war ended, Tolkien moved back to Oxford with his wife and young son, where he was employed as a lexicographer working on the Oxford English Dictionary.

In 1920, he found a job as a Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, where he became a professor four years later.

Tolkien’s Middle English Vocabulary, a book he wrote for students, was published in 1922, and his edition of the medieval romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, was published in 1925.

That year, he returned to Oxford, where he taught as a fellow at Pembroke College. Tolkien spent the next 20 years teaching Old English, Old Norse, Gothic and Germanic philosophy to undergraduate students.

He also supervised postgraduate students and pursued his own research, with some of his lectures considered ground-breaking.

While at Oxford, Tolkien met C.S. Lewis, a colleague in the English Department and fellow writer behind famous works like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Tolkien and Lewis soon discovered their shared love of northern myths and legends, something they would spend hours and late nights discussing.

They shared a group of friends who would meet in pubs and colleague rooms to read their works-in-progress, drink and debate. This group, the Inklings, was named after an undergraduate club to which Tolkien and Lewis had been invited.

Tolkien also spent hours crafting his own fictional world, inventing thousands of years of history, creating languages, drawing maps, and painting landscapes.

He made up many stories for his four children, some of which he also wrote down and illustrated. One of these was called The Hobbit.

The Hobbit found its way to a publisher’s assistant who convinced Tolkien to submit the work for publication, which he agreed to.

In 1937, the book, which included Tolkien’s own illustrations, dust jacket designs and maps, was published. The first print-run sold out within three months.

Following the success of The Hobbit, the publisher urged Tolkien to produce more Hobbit stories. Tolkien offered up his unfinished version of The Silmarillion, but it was promptly rejected.

So, Tolkien set about to write a new story, a sequel to both The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, called The Lord of the Rings. This process turned out to be much longer than he had anticipated, taking 12 years to complete.

By the end, the story was also much different from The Hobbit. The Lord of the Rings was a long, complex, dark piece of fantasy literature, which was certainly not a children’s story.

There were some doubts about whether The Lord of the Rings would be a commercial success at all, given how monstrous the product had turned out.

However, believing in the story, the publisher decided to proceed with releasing it, despite knowing the firm could suffer a financial loss as a result. So, The Lord of the Rings was published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955.

Although literary critics were divided over the books, it was a smash hit, selling at a rate neither Tolkien nor his publisher had anticipated.

In the years that followed, Tolkien continued writing and publishing, pursuing his career in academia, and dealing with his newfound fame and the obligations which arose because of it.

He also continued his work on The Silmarillion, which fans and his publisher were all clamouring for. However, it wasn’t until he retired and moved to Bournemouth when he and his wife finally had time to commit to the project.

Unfortunately, over the next few years, his wife’s health deteriorated, and in 1971, she passed away. Tolkien moved back to Oxford, but passed away two years later in 1973.

Although Tolkien was never able to complete The Silmarillion, his works are still considered some of the most important and famous in fantasy literature today.

Major motion pictures based on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were also incredibly commercially successful and beloved by fans around the world.

Original article.

Photo by Joshua Harris on Unspalsh