Born January 3 – J.R.R. Tolkien

About J.R.R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is best known for his fantasy fiction works, including The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. Born January 3, 1892, in what is now South Africa, he is considered the “father” of modern fantasy literature.

Tolkien’s ancestors made watches and clocks in London and Birmingham. His family emigrated from Germany to England in the mid-1700s. He has jokingly said his surname was derived from a German word (tollkühn), which means “foolhardy.”

His father, a bank manager, and mother had moved to South Africa where his father headed the Bloemfontein office of the bank he worked for. His mother, Mabel, taught young Ronald and his brother. Tolkien was especially fond of drawing landscapes and tress, but his favorite lessons were those about languages.

Mabel Tolkien died from diabetes when J.R.R. was just 12 years old. He attended several schools, including King Edward’s, becoming a cadet in the school’s Officers Training Corps. In 1913, Tolkien married Edith Bratt. The couple had four children, two of whom are still living.

Tolkien went on to serve as a lieutenant in the first world war. Following the war, he worked at the Oxford English Dictionary, primarily on the history and etymology of words beginning with the letter W. In 1925, he became a professor at Oxford with a fellowship at Pembroke College. It was during his time at Oxford (in 1926), that Tolkien met his dearest friend, C.S. Lewis. Both men taught literature of medieval romance, which influenced their writings. It was also during this time that he wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings.

During World War II, Tolkien served as a codebreaker. He later returned to his teaching career and in 1948, completed The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien wrote many more works, some of which were published after his death by his son. He retired from teaching in 1959, and received many awards and honors for this writing. He was nominated by C.S. Lewis for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961.

Edith Tolkien died in November of 1971, at the age of 82. Twenty-one months later, on September 2, 1973, J.R.R. Tolkien died from natural causes. He was 81.

How did J.R.R. Tolkien get the idea for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings?

During his lifetime, Tolkien traveled extensively, and many places he visited influenced the landscapes of Middle Earth, including the Swiss Alps, which inspired the Elven realm of Rivendell. It is said that Bilbo’s homeland, The Shire, developed from Tolkien’s fond memories of Sarehole, a town near Birmingham, where Tolkien once lived.

Many writings and authors influenced Tolkien’s works. Smaug the dragon was likely inspired from his love of Beowulf. He enjoyed reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and the dwarfs in Tolkien’s books have similarities to those created by the Brothers Grimm.

An artifact, known as The Ring of Silvianus, was found in a Roman field in 1785. It was allegedly stolen from a Roman called Silvianus in the Fourth Century by a man named Senicianus. Silvianus called down a curse upon the thief, but the details of that curse weren’t discovered until 1929. Sir Mortimer Wheeler, an archeologist working on the site of the Roman Temple of Nodens, consulted with Tolkien about the name of the god invoked in the curse. The ring and the curse are said to have inspired the One Ring in Tolkien’s writings.

Excerpt from The Hobbit (Or There and Back Again):

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

Famous quotes of J.R.R. Tolkien:

• “Not all those who wander are lost.”
• “A man who flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a shortcut to meet it.”
• “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
• “A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”