Biography of Tolkein

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3 ,1892 is Bloemfontein, South Africa. Tolkiens’ memories of South Africa were vivid and slightly influenced his writing because on Febuary 15, 1896 his father died, forcing him and his family to move to England. Tolkien was split between living in very rural Sarehole and going to school in the urban city of Birmingham (Decoster 1). This became extremely important in developing Tolkiens linguistic skills. The differences in the “city” language and “country” language struck up much interest in linguistics for Tolkien. Tolkiens’ mother noticed her sons interest in language and began to teach him Latin and Greek. Tolkien also became interest

The author had mixed feelings about his new found success. He was extremely flattered and was amazed when he started becoming rich. On the other had, he was extremely displeased with his fans who chose to ingest drugs and read his books to “go to another world.” His fans were also causing many problems. (Hammond 3) Fans of the series would trek across the country just to view his house. Others would call at all hours of the night demanding answer to questions they had about the plot of the LotR series. (Friesen 2)

In 1918, Tolkien was appointed Assistant Lexicographer on the New English Dictionary. While doing philological work involved in this, he also read one of his Lost Tales to the public. He read The Fall of Gondolin to the Exeter College Essay club, where it was well liked. He did not work as a Lexicographer for long though. He soon applied for the Reader position in the English Language at the University of Leeds and to his surprise, he was appointed. (Rogers 4) At Leeds, not only did he teach but he also collaborated with E.V Gordon on their own edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. During his time at Leeds, he continued to work refining and revising The Book of Lost Tales. He also invented “Elvish” languages. He and Gordon also founded a club devoted to sitting around and drinking beer while reading old Norse stories. It was for this club that he and Gordon wrote Songs for Philologists, a mixture of traditional songs and verses translated into Old English and Gothic to fit traditional tunes. Then in 1925, Tolkien returned to Oxford as a professor. (Friesen 2)

Tolkien was sent to active duty on the Western Front. After months of being in and out of the trenches, he finally came down with “trench fever,” an infection which is very common in unsanitary conditions (Friesen 3). In early November, he was sent back to England where he spent the next month in a hospital in Birmingham. Some of Tolkiens’ friends from his earlier years, had been killed in action. He started writing stories in memory of his friends and his war experiences. (Hammond 2) These stories eventually developed into the Book of Lost Tales. Through the next two years, his illness kept reoccurring. His periods of remission enabled him to do home service and be activated as lieutenant. While he was stationed at Hull, he and Edith would walk in the woods and she would dance for him. This was the inspiration for quite a few of his tales. (Decoster 2)

The Hobbit was so popular, the publisher demanded a follow up. Tolkien worked slowly on what later became the Lord of the Rings series (Rogers 4). Work on this project took many years. Lord of the Rings was published in 1954, seventeen y

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