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[[Image:Jrrt 1972 pipe.jpg|right|thumb|350px|J. R. R. Tolkien in 1972, in his study at Merton Street (from ''J. R. R. Tolkien. A Biography'' by H. Carpenter)]]
 
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{{Quote|Worth fighting for good in this world| J.R.R. Tolkien}}
 
 
[[File:Jrrt 1972 pipe.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Tolkien in 1972, in his study at Merton Street (from ''J. R. R. Tolkien. A Biography'' by H. Carpenter)]]
 
'''John Ronald Reuel Tolkien''' (January 3, [[1892]] – September 2, [[1973]]) is best known as the author of ''[[The Hobbit]]'' and its sequel ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. He was a professor of [[Old English language|Anglo-Saxon language]] at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and of English studies English language and literature, also at Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. He was a strongly committed Roman Catholic. Tolkien was a close friend of [[C.S. Lewis]], with whom he shared membership in the literary discussion group ''[[The Inklings]]''.
 
'''John Ronald Reuel Tolkien''' (January 3, [[1892]] – September 2, [[1973]]) is best known as the author of ''[[The Hobbit]]'' and its sequel ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. He was a professor of [[Old English language|Anglo-Saxon language]] at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and of English studies English language and literature, also at Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. He was a strongly committed Roman Catholic. Tolkien was a close friend of [[C.S. Lewis]], with whom he shared membership in the literary discussion group ''[[The Inklings]]''.
   
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===The Tolkien family===
 
===The Tolkien family===
As far as is known, most of Tolkien's paternal ancestors were craftsmen. The Tolkien family had its roots in Saxony (Germany), but had been living in England since the eighteenth century, becoming "quickly and intensely English (not British)". <ref>(''Letters'' no. 165)</ref> The surname ''Tolkien'' is anglicized from ''Tollkiehn'' (i.e. German ''tollkühn'', "foolhardy", literally "insane(ly)-brave", the etymological English translation would be ''dull-keen'', a literal translation of ''oxymoron''). The surname ''Rashbold'' of two characters in ''[[The Notion Club Papers]]'' is a pun on this.<ref>(undergraduate John Jethro Rashbold, and "old Professor Rashbold at Pembroke"; ''Sauron Defeated'', pg 151, ''Letters'', 165)</ref>
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As far as is known, most of Tolkien's paternal ancestors were craftsmen. The Tolkien family had its roots in Saxony (Germany), but had been living in England since the eighteenth century, becoming "quickly and intensely English (not British)".<ref>(''Letters'' no. 165)</ref> The surname ''Tolkien'' is anglicized from ''Tollkiehn'' (i.e. German ''tollkühn'', "foolhardy", literally "insane(ly)-brave", the etymological English translation would be ''dull-keen'', a literal translation of ''oxymoron''). The surname ''Rashbold'' of two characters in ''[[The Notion Club Papers]]'' is a pun on this.<ref>(undergraduate John Jethro Rashbold, and "old Professor Rashbold at Pembroke"; ''Sauron Defeated'', pg 151, ''Letters'', 165)</ref>
   
 
==Biography==
 
==Biography==
 
{| align="right"
 
{| align="right"
 
|-
 
|-
 
|[[File:J.R.R. Tolkien|Video about the life of Tolkien|250px]]<br />
|<youtube width="250" height="250">dMTCvmyuFos</youtube><br />
 
<small>Video about the life of Tolkien</small>
 
 
|}
 
|}
   
 
===Childhood===
 
===Childhood===
 
Tolkien was born on January 3, [[1892]], in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State
 
Tolkien was born on January 3, [[1892]], in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State
(now Free State), South Africa, to Arthur Tolkien, an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, ''née'' Suffield (1870 - 1904). Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel, who was born on February 17, 1894.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 22)</ref>
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(now Free State), South Africa, to Arthur Tolkien, an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, ''née'' Suffield (1870–1904). Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel, who was born on February 17, 1894.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 22)</ref>
   
While living in Africa, he was bitten by a large tarantula in the garden, an event which would have later parallels in his stories.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 21)</ref> When he was three, Tolkien went to [[England]] with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of [[Wikipedia:rheumatic fever|rheumatic fever]] before he could join them.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 24)</ref> This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in [[Wikipedia:Birmingham, England|Birmingham, England]]. Soon after in 1896, they moved to [[Wikipedia:Sarehole|Sarehole]] (now in [[Wikipedia:Hall Green|Hall Green]]), then a [[Wikipedia:Worcestershire|Worcestershire]] village, later annexed to Birmingham.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 27)</ref> He enjoyed exploring [[Wikipedia:Sarehole Mill|Sarehole Mill]], [[Wikipedia:Moseley Bog|Moseley Bog]], the [[Wikipedia:Clent Hills|Clent Hills]], and [[Wikipedia:Lickey Hills|Lickey Hills]], which would later inspire scenes in his books along with other Worcestershire towns and villages such as [[Wikipedia:Bromsgrove|Bromsgrove]], [[Wikipedia:Alcester|Alcester]] and [[Wikipedia:Alvechurch|Alvechurch]] and places such as his aunt's farm of Bag End, the name of which would be used in his fiction.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 113)</ref>
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While living in Africa, he was bitten by a large tarantula in the garden, an event which would have later parallels in his stories.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 21)</ref> When he was three, Tolkien went to [[England]] with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of [[Wikipedia:rheumatic fever|rheumatic fever]] before he could join them.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 24)</ref> This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in [[Wikipedia:Birmingham, England|Birmingham, England]]. Soon after in 1896, they moved to [[Wikipedia:Sarehole|Sarehole]] (now in [[Wikipedia:Hall Green|Hall Green]]), then a [[Wikipedia:Worcestershire|Worcestershire]] village, later annexed to Birmingham.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 27)</ref> He enjoyed exploring [[Wikipedia:Sarehole Mill|Sarehole Mill]], [[Wikipedia:Moseley Bog|Moseley Bog]], the [[Wikipedia:Clent Hills|Clent Hills]], and [[Wikipedia:Lickey Hills|Lickey Hills]], which would later inspire scenes in his books along with other Worcestershire towns and villages such as [[Wikipedia:Bromsgrove|Bromsgrove]], [[Wikipedia:Alcester|Alcester]] and [[Wikipedia:Alvechurch|Alvechurch]] and places such as his aunt's farm of Bag End, the name of which would be used in his fiction.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 113)</ref>
   
 
[[Image:Jrrt 1905.jpg|left|thumb|150px|Ronald and Hilary Tolkien in 1905 (from Carpenter's ''Biography'')]]
 
[[Image:Jrrt 1905.jpg|left|thumb|150px|Ronald and Hilary Tolkien in 1905 (from Carpenter's ''Biography'')]]
   
Mabel tutored her two sons, and Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 29)</ref> She taught him a great deal of [[Wikipedia:botany|botany]], and she awoke in her son the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees. But his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of [[Wikipedia:Latin|Latin]] very early.<ref>{{cite web|last= Doughan |first=David|year=2002|url=http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html| title=JRR Tolkien Biography|format=HTML|work = Life of Tolkien|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> He could read by the age of four, and could write fluently soon afterwards. He attended [[Wikipedia:King Edward's School, Birmingham|King Edward's School, Birmingham]] and, while a student there, helped "line the route" for the [[Wikipedia:coronation|coronation]] parade of King [[Wikipedia:George V of the United Kingdom|George V]], being posted just outside the gates of [[Wikipedia:Buckingham Palace|Buckingham Palace]].<ref>(''Letters'', no. 306)</ref> He later attended [[Wikipedia:St. Philip's School|St. Philip's School]] and [[Wikipedia:Exeter College, Oxford|Exter College, Oxford]].
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Mabel tutored her two sons, and Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 29)</ref> She taught him a great deal of [[Wikipedia:botany|botany]], and she awoke in her son the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees. But his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of [[Wikipedia:Latin|Latin]] very early.<ref>{{cite web|last= Doughan |first=David|year=2002|url=http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html| title=JRR Tolkien Biography|work = Life of Tolkien|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> He could read by the age of four, and could write fluently soon afterwards. He attended [[Wikipedia:King Edward's School, Birmingham|King Edward's School, Birmingham]] and, while a student there, helped "line the route" for the [[Wikipedia:coronation|coronation]] parade of King [[Wikipedia:George V of the United Kingdom|George V]], being posted just outside the gates of [[Wikipedia:Buckingham Palace|Buckingham Palace]].<ref>(''Letters'', no. 306)</ref> He later attended [[Wikipedia:St. Philip's School|St. Philip's School]] and [[Wikipedia:Exeter College, Oxford|Exter College, Oxford]].
   
 
His mother converted to [[Wikipedia:Roman Catholicism|Roman Catholicism]] in 1900 despite vehement protests by her [[Wikipedia:Baptist|Baptist]] family.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 31)</ref> She died of [[Wikipedia:diabetes|diabetes]] in 1904, when Tolkien was twelve, at Fern Cottage, [[Wikipedia:Rednal|Rednal]], which they were then renting. For the rest of his life, Tolkien felt that she had become a [[Wikipedia:martyr|martyr]] for her faith; this had a profound effect on his own Catholic beliefs.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 39)</ref> Tolkien's devout faith was significant in the conversion of [[C.S. Lewis]] to Christianity, though Tolkien was greatly disappointed that Lewis chose to follow [[Wikipedia:Anglicanism|Anglicanism]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Carpenter|first=Humphrey|year=1978|title=The Inklings|publisher=Allen & Unwin}}</ref>
 
His mother converted to [[Wikipedia:Roman Catholicism|Roman Catholicism]] in 1900 despite vehement protests by her [[Wikipedia:Baptist|Baptist]] family.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 31)</ref> She died of [[Wikipedia:diabetes|diabetes]] in 1904, when Tolkien was twelve, at Fern Cottage, [[Wikipedia:Rednal|Rednal]], which they were then renting. For the rest of his life, Tolkien felt that she had become a [[Wikipedia:martyr|martyr]] for her faith; this had a profound effect on his own Catholic beliefs.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 39)</ref> Tolkien's devout faith was significant in the conversion of [[C.S. Lewis]] to Christianity, though Tolkien was greatly disappointed that Lewis chose to follow [[Wikipedia:Anglicanism|Anglicanism]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Carpenter|first=Humphrey|year=1978|title=The Inklings|publisher=Allen & Unwin}}</ref>
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===Youth===
 
===Youth===
Tolkien met and fell in love with [[Wikipedia:Edith Bratt|Edith Mary Bratt]], three years his senior, at the age of sixteen. Father Francis forbade him from meeting, talking, or even corresponding with her until he was twenty-one. He obeyed this prohibition to the letter.<ref>{{cite web|last=Doughan|first=David|year=2002|url=http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html#2| title=War, Lost Tales And Academia|format=HTML|work = J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref>
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Tolkien met and fell in love with [[Wikipedia:Edith Bratt|Edith Mary Bratt]], three years his senior, at the age of sixteen. Father Francis forbade him from meeting, talking, or even corresponding with her until he was twenty-one. He obeyed this prohibition to the letter.<ref>{{cite web|last=Doughan|first=David|year=2002|url=http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html#2| title=War, Lost Tales And Academia|work = J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref>
   
 
In 1911 at age 19, while they were at [[Wikipedia:King Edward's School, Birmingham|King Edward's School]], [[Wikipedia:Birmingham|Birmingham]], Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society which they called "the [[Wikipedia:TCBS|T.C.B.S.]]", the initials standing for "Tea Club and Barrovian Society", alluding to their fondness of drinking [[Wikipedia:tea|tea]] in Barrow's Stores near the school and, illicitly, in the school library.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 53-54)</ref> After leaving school, the members stayed in touch, and in December 1914, they held a "Council" in London, at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry.
 
In 1911 at age 19, while they were at [[Wikipedia:King Edward's School, Birmingham|King Edward's School]], [[Wikipedia:Birmingham|Birmingham]], Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society which they called "the [[Wikipedia:TCBS|T.C.B.S.]]", the initials standing for "Tea Club and Barrovian Society", alluding to their fondness of drinking [[Wikipedia:tea|tea]] in Barrow's Stores near the school and, illicitly, in the school library.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 53-54)</ref> After leaving school, the members stayed in touch, and in December 1914, they held a "Council" in London, at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry.
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[[image:Tolkien 1916.jpg|left|thumb|150px|Tolkien in 1916, wearing his British Army uniform in a photograph from the middle years of WW1 (from Carpenter's ''Biography'')]]
 
[[image:Tolkien 1916.jpg|left|thumb|150px|Tolkien in 1916, wearing his British Army uniform in a photograph from the middle years of WW1 (from Carpenter's ''Biography'')]]
   
===Young Adulthood===
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===Young adulthood===
 
On the evening of his twenty-first birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith a declaration of his love and asked her to marry him. She replied saying that she was already engaged but had done so because she had believed Tolkien had forgotten her. The two met up and beneath a railway viaduct renewed their love; Edith returned her ring and chose to marry Tolkien instead.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 67-69)</ref> Following their engagement Edith converted to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 73)</ref> They were engaged in Birmingham, in January 1913, and married in [[Wikipedia:Warwick, England|Warwick, England]], on March 22, 1916.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 86)</ref>
 
On the evening of his twenty-first birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith a declaration of his love and asked her to marry him. She replied saying that she was already engaged but had done so because she had believed Tolkien had forgotten her. The two met up and beneath a railway viaduct renewed their love; Edith returned her ring and chose to marry Tolkien instead.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 67-69)</ref> Following their engagement Edith converted to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 73)</ref> They were engaged in Birmingham, in January 1913, and married in [[Wikipedia:Warwick, England|Warwick, England]], on March 22, 1916.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 86)</ref>
   
With his childhood love of landscape, he visited [[Wikipedia:Cornwall|Cornwall]] in 1914 and he was said to be deeply impressed by the singular Cornish coastline and sea.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 78)</ref> After graduating from the [[Wikipedia:University of Oxford|University of Oxford]] ([[Wikipedia:Exeter College, Oxford|Exeter College, Oxford]]) with a first-class degree in [[Wikipedia:English studies|English]] language in 1915, Tolkien joined the [[Wikipedia:British Army|British Army]] effort in [[World War I]] and served as a [[Wikipedia:second lieutenant|second lieutenant]] in the eleventh [[Wikipedia:battalion|battalion]] of the [[Wikipedia:Lancashire Fusiliers|Lancashire Fusiliers]].<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 85)</ref> His battalion was moved to France in 1916, where Tolkien served as a communications officer during the [[Wikipedia:Battle of the Somme (1916)|Battle of the Somme]] until he came down with [[Wikipedia:trench fever|trench fever]] on October 27 and was moved back to England on November 8.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 93)</ref> Many of his fellow servicemen, as well as many of his closest friends, were killed in the war. During his recovery in a cottage in [[Wikipedia:Great Haywood|Great Haywood]], [[Wikipedia:Staffordshire, England|Staffordshire, England]], he began to work on what he called ''[[The Book of Lost Tales]]'', beginning with ''[[The Fall of Gondolin]]''. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps, and was promoted to lieutenant. When he was stationed at [[Wikipedia:Kingston upon Hull|Kingston upon Hull]], one day he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby [[Wikipedia:Roos|Roos]], and Edith began to dance for him in a thick grove of [[Wikipedia:hemlock|hemlock]]; "We walked in a wood where hemlock was growing, a sea of white flowers". This incident inspired the account of the meeting of [[Beren]] and [[Lúthien]], and Tolkien often referred to Edith as his Lúthien..<ref>{{cite web|last=Cater|first=Bill|year=[[April 12]], [[2001]]|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2001/12/04/batolk04.xml| title=We talked of love, death, and fairy tales=HTML|work =UK Telegraph|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref>
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With his childhood love of landscape, he visited [[Wikipedia:Cornwall|Cornwall]] in 1914 and he was said to be deeply impressed by the singular Cornish coastline and sea.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 78)</ref> After graduating from the [[Wikipedia:University of Oxford|University of Oxford]] ([[Wikipedia:Exeter College, Oxford|Exeter College, Oxford]]) with a first-class degree in [[Wikipedia:English studies|English]] language in 1915, Tolkien joined the [[Wikipedia:British Army|British Army]] effort in [[World War I]] and served as a [[Wikipedia:second lieutenant|second lieutenant]] in the eleventh [[Wikipedia:battalion|battalion]] of the [[Wikipedia:Lancashire Fusiliers|Lancashire Fusiliers]].<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 85)</ref> His battalion was moved to France in 1916, where Tolkien served as a communications officer during the [[Wikipedia:Battle of the Somme (1916)|Battle of the Somme]] until he came down with [[Wikipedia:trench fever|trench fever]] on October 27 and was moved back to England on November 8.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 93)</ref> Many of his fellow servicemen, as well as many of his closest friends, were killed in the war. During his recovery in a cottage in [[Wikipedia:Great Haywood|Great Haywood]], [[Wikipedia:Staffordshire, England|Staffordshire, England]], he began to work on what he called ''[[The Book of Lost Tales]]'', beginning with ''[[The Fall of Gondolin]]''. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps, and was promoted to lieutenant. When he was stationed at [[Wikipedia:Kingston upon Hull|Kingston upon Hull]], one day he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby [[Wikipedia:Roos|Roos]], and Edith began to dance for him in a thick grove of [[Wikipedia:hemlock|hemlock]]; "We walked in a wood where hemlock was growing, a sea of white flowers". This incident inspired the account of the meeting of [[Beren]] and [[Lúthien]], and Tolkien often referred to Edith as his Lúthien.<ref>{{cite web|last=Cater|first=Bill|year=[[April 12]], [[2001]]|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2001/12/04/batolk04.xml| title=We talked of love, death, and fairy tales=HTML|work =UK Telegraph|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref>
   
 
===Tenure===
 
===Tenure===
Tolkien's first civilian job after World War I was at the ''[[Wikipedia:Oxford English Dictionary|Oxford English Dictionary]]''.<ref>among others, initiating the entries ''wasp'' and ''walrus''; {{cite web|last= Tritel|first=Barbara|year=May 27, [[1984]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-lost.html| title=Language and Prehistory of the Elves|format=HTML|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> In 1920 he took up a post as [[Wikipedia:Reader (academic rank)|Reader]] in English language at the [[Wikipedia:University of Leeds|University of Leeds]], and in 1924 was made a [[Wikipedia:professor|professor]] there, but in 1925 he returned to Oxford as a professor of [[Wikipedia:Anglo-Saxon|Anglo-Saxon]] at [[Wikipedia:Pembroke College, Oxford|Pembroke College]].<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 109, 114-115)</ref>
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Tolkien's first civilian job after World War I was at the ''[[Wikipedia:Oxford English Dictionary|Oxford English Dictionary]]''.<ref>among others, initiating the entries ''wasp'' and ''walrus''; {{cite web|last= Tritel|first=Barbara|year=May 27, [[1984]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-lost.html| title=Language and Prehistory of the Elves|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> In 1920 he took up a post as [[Wikipedia:Reader (academic rank)|Reader]] in English language at the [[Wikipedia:University of Leeds|University of Leeds]], and in 1924 was made a [[Wikipedia:professor|professor]] there, but in 1925 he returned to Oxford as a professor of [[Wikipedia:Anglo-Saxon|Anglo-Saxon]] at [[Wikipedia:Pembroke College, Oxford|Pembroke College]].<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 109, 114-115)</ref>
   
Tolkien and Edith had four children: John Francis Reuel (November 17, 1917 - January 22, 2003), Michael Hilary Reuel (October 1920&ndash;1984), [[Christopher Tolkien|Christopher John Reuel]] (1924) and Priscilla Anne Reuel (1929). Tolkien assisted Sir [[Wikipedia:Mortimer Wheeler|Mortimer Wheeler]] in the unearthing of a [[Wikipedia:Ancient Rome|Roman]] [[Wikipedia:Asclepieion|Asclepieion]] at [[Wikipedia:Lydney Park|Lydney Park]], [[Wikipedia:Gloucestershire|Gloucestershire]], in 1928.<ref>See ''The Name Nodens'' (1932)</ref> During his time at Pembroke, Tolkien wrote ''[[The Hobbit]]'' and the first two volumes of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. Of Tolkien's academic publications, the 1936 lecture "[[Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics]]" had a lasting influence on [[Beowulf]] research.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 143)</ref> Lewis E. Nicholson noted that the article Tolkien wrote about Beowulf is "widely recognized as a turning point in Beowulfian criticism", noting that Tolkien established the primacy of the poetic nature of the work as opposed to the purely linguistic elements. <ref>{{cite web|last= Ramey|first=Bill|year=March 30, 1998|url=http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/beowulf.htm| title=The Unity of Beowulf: Tolkien and the Critics|format=HTML|work = Wisdom's Children|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref> He also revealed in his famous article how highly he regarded Beowulf; "Beowulf is among my most valued sources ..." And indeed, there are many influences of Beowulf found in the Lord of the Rings. <ref>{{cite web|last= Kennedy|first=Michael|year=2001|url=http://www.triode.net.au/~dragon/tilkal/issue1/beowulf.html| title=Tolkien and Beowulf- Warriors of Middle-Earth|format=HTML|work = Amon Hen|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref>
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Tolkien and Edith had four children: John Francis Reuel (November 17, 1917 - January 22, 2003), Michael Hilary Reuel (October 1920&ndash;1984), [[Christopher Tolkien|Christopher John Reuel]] (1924) and Priscilla Anne Reuel (1929). Tolkien assisted Sir [[Wikipedia:Mortimer Wheeler|Mortimer Wheeler]] in the unearthing of a [[Wikipedia:Ancient Rome|Roman]] [[Wikipedia:Asclepieion|Asclepieion]] at [[Wikipedia:Lydney Park|Lydney Park]], [[Wikipedia:Gloucestershire|Gloucestershire]], in 1928.<ref>See ''The Name Nodens'' (1932)</ref> During his time at Pembroke, Tolkien wrote ''[[The Hobbit]]'' and the first two volumes of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. Of Tolkien's academic publications, the 1936 lecture "[[Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics]]" had a lasting influence on [[Beowulf]] research.<ref>(''Biography'' 1977, pg 143)</ref> Lewis E. Nicholson noted that the article Tolkien wrote about Beowulf is "widely recognized as a turning point in Beowulfian criticism", noting that Tolkien established the primacy of the poetic nature of the work as opposed to the purely linguistic elements.<ref>{{cite web|last= Ramey|first=Bill|date=March 30, 1998|url=http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/beowulf.htm| title=The Unity of Beowulf: Tolkien and the Critics|work = Wisdom's Children|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref> He also revealed in his famous article how highly he regarded Beowulf; "Beowulf is among my most valued sources ..." And indeed, there are many influences of Beowulf found in the Lord of the Rings.<ref>{{cite web|last= Kennedy|first=Michael|year=2001|url=http://www.triode.net.au/~dragon/tilkal/issue1/beowulf.html| title=Tolkien and Beowulf- Warriors of Middle-Earth|work = Amon Hen|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref>
   
In 1945, he moved to [[Wikipedia:Merton College, Oxford|Merton College, Oxford]], becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien completed ''The Lord of the Rings'' in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches. During the 1950s, Tolkien spent many of his long academic holidays at the home of his son John Francis in [[Wikipedia:Stoke-on-Trent|Stoke-on-Trent]].
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In 1945, he moved to [[Wikipedia:Merton College, Oxford|Merton College, Oxford]], becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien completed ''The Lord of the Rings'' in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches. During the 1950s, Tolkien spent many of his long academic holidays at the home of his son John Francis in [[Wikipedia:Stoke-on-Trent|Stoke-on-Trent]].
 
Tolkien had an intense dislike for the side effects of [[Wikipedia:industrialisation|industrialisation]] which he considered a devouring of the English countryside. For most of his adult life he eschewed automobiles, preferring to ride a bicycle.<ref>(''Letters'' no. 64, 131, etc.)</ref> This attitude is perceptible from some parts of his work such as the forced industrialisation of The Shire in ''The Lord of the Rings''.
 
Tolkien had an intense dislike for the side effects of [[Wikipedia:industrialisation|industrialisation]] which he considered a devouring of the English countryside. For most of his adult life he eschewed automobiles, preferring to ride a bicycle.<ref>(''Letters'' no. 64, 131, etc.)</ref> This attitude is perceptible from some parts of his work such as the forced industrialisation of The Shire in ''The Lord of the Rings''.
   
 
[[Image:Jrrt 1972 tree.jpg|thumb|right|180px|The last known photograph of Tolkien, taken 9 October, [[1972]], next to one of his favourite trees (a ''[[Wikipedia:Pinus nigra|Pinus nigra]]'') in the Botanic Garden, Oxford.]]
 
[[Image:Jrrt 1972 tree.jpg|thumb|right|180px|The last known photograph of Tolkien, taken 9 October, [[1972]], next to one of his favourite trees (a ''[[Wikipedia:Pinus nigra|Pinus nigra]]'') in the Botanic Garden, Oxford.]]
   
[[Wikipedia:W.H. Auden|W.H. Auden]] was a frequent correspondent and long-time friend of Tolkien's, initiated by Auden's fascination with ''The Lord of the Rings'': Auden was among the most prominent early critics to praise the work. Tolkien wrote in a 1971 letter, "I am [...] very deeply in Auden's debt in recent years. His support of me and interest in my work has been one of my chief encouragements. He gave me very good reviews, notices and letters from the beginning when it was by no means a popular thing to do. He was, in fact, sneered at for it." <ref>(''Letters'', no. 327)</ref>.
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[[Wikipedia:W.H. Auden|W.H. Auden]] was a frequent correspondent and long-time friend of Tolkien's, initiated by Auden's fascination with ''The Lord of the Rings'': Auden was among the most prominent early critics to praise the work. Tolkien wrote in a 1971 letter, "I am [...] very deeply in Auden's debt in recent years. His support of me and interest in my work has been one of my chief encouragements. He gave me very good reviews, notices and letters from the beginning when it was by no means a popular thing to do. He was, in fact, sneered at for it.".<ref>(''Letters'', no. 327)</ref>
   
 
===Retirement and old age===
 
===Retirement and old age===
During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien increasingly turned into a figure of public attention and literary fame. The sale of his books was so profitable that Tolkien regretted he had not taken early retirement.<ref>{{cite web|last= Doughan |first=David|year=2002|url=http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html| title=JRR Tolkien Biography|format=HTML|work = Life of Tolkien|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref> While at first he wrote enthusiastic answers to reader inquiries, he became more and more suspicious of emerging [[Tolkien fandom]], especially among the [[Wikipedia:hippy|hippy]] movement in the USA.<ref>{{cite web|last=Meras|first=Phyllis|year=January 15, 1967|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-gandalf.html| title="Go, Go, Gandalf"|format=HTML|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> In a 1972 letter he deplores having become a cult-figure, but admits that
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During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien increasingly turned into a figure of public attention and literary fame. The sale of his books was so profitable that Tolkien regretted he had not taken early retirement.<ref>{{cite web|last= Doughan |first=David|year=2002|url=http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html| title=JRR Tolkien Biography|work = Life of Tolkien|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref> While at first he wrote enthusiastic answers to reader inquiries, he became more and more suspicious of emerging [[Tolkien fandom]], especially among the [[Wikipedia:hippy|hippy]] movement in the USA.<ref>{{cite web|last=Meras|first=Phyllis|date=January 15, 1967|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-gandalf.html| title=Go, Go, Gandalf|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> In a 1972 letter he deplores having become a cult-figure, but admits that
:''even the nose of a very modest idol (younger than Chu-Bu and not much older than Sheemish) cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!'' <ref>(''Letters'', no. 336; Chu-Bu and Sheemish are idols in a 1912 story by [[wikipedia:Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany|Lord Dunsany]])</ref>.
+
:''even the nose of a very modest idol (younger than Chu-Bu and not much older than Sheemish) cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!''.<ref>(''Letters'', no. 336; Chu-Bu and Sheemish are idols in a 1912 story by [[wikipedia:Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany|Lord Dunsany]])</ref>
   
Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory<ref>(''Letters'', no. 332)</ref>, and eventually he and Edith moved to [[Wikipedia:Bournemouth|Bournemouth]] at the south coast. Tolkien was awarded a [[Wikipedia:Order of the British Empire|CBE]] by Queen [[Wikipedia:Elizabeth II|Elizabeth II]] at [[Wikipedia:Buckingham Palace|Buckingham Palace]] on March 28, 1972.
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Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory,<ref>(''Letters'', no. 332)</ref> and eventually he and Edith moved to [[Wikipedia:Bournemouth|Bournemouth]] at the south coast. Tolkien was awarded a [[Wikipedia:Order of the British Empire|CBE]] by Queen [[Wikipedia:Elizabeth II|Elizabeth II]] at [[Wikipedia:Buckingham Palace|Buckingham Palace]] on March 28, 1972.
   
 
[[Image:Tolkiengrab.jpg|thumb|left|The grave of J. R. R. and Edith Tolkien, [[Wikipedia:Wolvercote Cemetery|Wolvercote Cemetery]], [[Wikipedia:Oxford|Oxford]].]]
 
[[Image:Tolkiengrab.jpg|thumb|left|The grave of J. R. R. and Edith Tolkien, [[Wikipedia:Wolvercote Cemetery|Wolvercote Cemetery]], [[Wikipedia:Oxford|Oxford]].]]
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engraved on the stone at [[Wikipedia:Wolvercote Cemetery|Wolvercote Cemetery]], [[Wikipedia:Oxford|Oxford]]. When Tolkien died 21 months later on [[Wikipedia:September 2|September 2]], [[1973]], at the age of 81, he was buried in the same grave, with [[Beren]] added to his name, so that the engraving now reads:
 
engraved on the stone at [[Wikipedia:Wolvercote Cemetery|Wolvercote Cemetery]], [[Wikipedia:Oxford|Oxford]]. When Tolkien died 21 months later on [[Wikipedia:September 2|September 2]], [[1973]], at the age of 81, he was buried in the same grave, with [[Beren]] added to his name, so that the engraving now reads:
 
''Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889 - 1971''
 
''Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889 - 1971''
''John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892 - 1973
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''John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892–1973
   
 
Posthumously named after Tolkien are the Tolkien Road in [[Wikipedia:Eastbourne|Eastbourne]], [[Wikipedia:East Sussex|East Sussex]], and the asteroid [[Wikipedia:2675 Tolkien|2675 Tolkien]]. Tolkien Way in [[Wikipedia:Stoke-on-Trent|Stoke-on-Trent]] is named after J.R.R. Tolkien's son Father John Francis Tolkien who was the priest in charge at the nearby Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Angels and St. Peter in Chains.<ref>{{cite web|title=People of Stoke-on-Trent|url=http://www.thepotteries.org/people/tolkien_john.htm|accessdate=2005-03-13}}</ref><div style="clear: both"></div>
 
Posthumously named after Tolkien are the Tolkien Road in [[Wikipedia:Eastbourne|Eastbourne]], [[Wikipedia:East Sussex|East Sussex]], and the asteroid [[Wikipedia:2675 Tolkien|2675 Tolkien]]. Tolkien Way in [[Wikipedia:Stoke-on-Trent|Stoke-on-Trent]] is named after J.R.R. Tolkien's son Father John Francis Tolkien who was the priest in charge at the nearby Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Angels and St. Peter in Chains.<ref>{{cite web|title=People of Stoke-on-Trent|url=http://www.thepotteries.org/people/tolkien_john.htm|accessdate=2005-03-13}}</ref><div style="clear: both"></div>
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Beginning with ''[[The Book of Lost Tales]]'', written while recuperating from illness during World War I, Tolkien devised several themes that were reused in successive drafts of his legendarium. The two most prominent stories, the tales of [[Beren]] and [[Lúthien]] and that of [[Túrin]], were carried forward into long narrative poems (published in ''[[The Lays of Beleriand]]''). Tolkien wrote a brief summary of the mythology these poems were intended to represent, and that summary eventually evolved into ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. It was originally to be published along with the Lord of the Rings, but printing costs were very high in the post-war years, later leading to the Lord of the Rings being published in three books.<ref>Hammond, Wayne G. ''J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Biography'', London: January 1993, Saint Pauls Biographies</ref> The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series ''[[The History of Middle-earth]]''. From around 1936, he began to extend this framework to include the tale of ''The Fall of [[Númenor]]'', which was inspired by the legend of [[Wikipedia:Atlantis|Atlantis]].
 
Beginning with ''[[The Book of Lost Tales]]'', written while recuperating from illness during World War I, Tolkien devised several themes that were reused in successive drafts of his legendarium. The two most prominent stories, the tales of [[Beren]] and [[Lúthien]] and that of [[Túrin]], were carried forward into long narrative poems (published in ''[[The Lays of Beleriand]]''). Tolkien wrote a brief summary of the mythology these poems were intended to represent, and that summary eventually evolved into ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. It was originally to be published along with the Lord of the Rings, but printing costs were very high in the post-war years, later leading to the Lord of the Rings being published in three books.<ref>Hammond, Wayne G. ''J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Biography'', London: January 1993, Saint Pauls Biographies</ref> The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series ''[[The History of Middle-earth]]''. From around 1936, he began to extend this framework to include the tale of ''The Fall of [[Númenor]]'', which was inspired by the legend of [[Wikipedia:Atlantis|Atlantis]].
   
Tolkien was strongly influenced by [[Wikipedia:Anglo-Saxon literature|Anglo-Saxon literature]], [[Wikipedia:Germanic mythology|Germanic]] and [[Norse mythology|Norse]] mythologies, [[Wikipedia:Finnish mythology|Finnish mythology]], the [[Wikipedia:Bible|Bible]], and [[Wikipedia:Greek mythology|Greek mythology]].<ref>{{cite book|first=David|last=Day|authorlink=[[wikipedia:David Day (Canadian writer)|David Day]]|year=February 1, [[2002]]|title=[[Tolkien's Ring]]|location = New York|publisher=Barnes and Noble|id = ISBN 1-586-63527-1}}</ref> The works most often cited as sources for Tolkien's stories include ''[[Beowulf]]'', the ''[[Kalevala]]'', the ''[[Wikipedia:Poetic Edda|Poetic Edda]]'', the ''[[Wikipedia:Volsunga saga|Volsunga saga]]'' and the ''[[Hervarar saga]]''.<ref>As described by Christopher Tolkien in ''Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks Konung'' (Oxford University, Trinity College). B. Litt. thesis. 1953/4. [Year uncertain], ''The Battle of the Goths and the Huns'', in: Saga-Book (University College, London, for the Viking Society for Northern Research) 14, part 3 (1955-6) [http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/bibl4.html]</ref> Tolkien himself acknowledged [[Wikipedia:Homer|Homer]], [[Wikipedia:Oedipus|Oedipus]], and the Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas.<ref>{{cite web|last=Handwerk|first=Brian|year=[[March 1]], [[2004]]|url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/12/1219_tolkienroots.html| title=Lord of the Rings Inspired by an Ancient Epic|format=HTML|work = National Geographic News|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref> His borrowings also came from numerous Middle English works and poems. A major philosophical influence on his writing is King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of ''[[Wikipedia:Boethius|Boethius]]''' ''[[Wikipedia:Consolation of Philosophy|Consolation of Philosphy]]'' known as the ''[[Wikipedia:Lays of Boethius|Lays of Boethius]]''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Gardner|first=John|year=October 23, [[1977]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1977/10/23/books/tolkien-silmarillion.html| title=The World of Tolkien|format=HTML|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref> Characters in ''The Lord of the Rings'' such as Frodo, Treebeard and Elrond make noticeably Boethian remarks.
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Tolkien was strongly influenced by [[Wikipedia:Anglo-Saxon literature|Anglo-Saxon literature]], [[Wikipedia:Germanic mythology|Germanic]] and [[Norse mythology|Norse]] mythologies, [[Wikipedia:Finnish mythology|Finnish mythology]], the [[Wikipedia:Bible|Bible]], and [[Wikipedia:Greek mythology|Greek mythology]].<ref>{{cite book|first=David|last=Day|authorlink=[[wikipedia:David Day (Canadian writer)|David Day]]|year=February 1, [[2002]]|title=[[Tolkien's Ring]]|location = New York|publisher=Barnes and Noble|isbn = 1-586-63527-1}}</ref> The works most often cited as sources for Tolkien's stories include ''[[Beowulf]]'', the ''[[Kalevala]]'', the ''[[Wikipedia:Poetic Edda|Poetic Edda]]'', the ''[[Wikipedia:Volsunga saga|Volsunga saga]]'' and the ''[[Hervarar saga]]''.<ref>As described by Christopher Tolkien in ''Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks Konung'' (Oxford University, Trinity College). B. Litt. thesis. 1953/4. [Year uncertain], ''The Battle of the Goths and the Huns'', in: Saga-Book (University College, London, for the Viking Society for Northern Research) 14, part 3 (1955-6) [http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/bibl4.html]</ref> Tolkien himself acknowledged [[Wikipedia:Homer|Homer]], [[Wikipedia:Oedipus|Oedipus]], and the Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas.<ref>{{cite web|last=Handwerk|first=Brian|year=[[March 1]], [[2004]]|url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/12/1219_tolkienroots.html| title=Lord of the Rings Inspired by an Ancient Epic|work = National Geographic News|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref> His borrowings also came from numerous Middle English works and poems. A major philosophical influence on his writing is King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of ''[[Wikipedia:Boethius|Boethius]]''' ''[[Wikipedia:Consolation of Philosophy|Consolation of Philosophy]]'' known as the ''[[Wikipedia:Lays of Boethius|Lays of Boethius]]''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Gardner|first=John|year=October 23, [[1977]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1977/10/23/books/tolkien-silmarillion.html| title=The World of Tolkien|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref> Characters in ''The Lord of the Rings'' such as Frodo, Treebeard and Elrond make noticeably Boethian remarks.
   
In addition to his [[mythopoeia|mythological compositions]], Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children.<ref>{{cite web|last=Phillip|first=Norman|year=2005|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-mag67.html| title=The Prevalance of Hobbits|format=HTML|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> He wrote annual Christmas letters from [[Wikipedia:Father Christmas|Father Christmas]] for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as ''[[Wikipedia:The Father Christmas Letters|The Father Christmas Letters]]''). Other stories included ''[[Wikipedia:Mr. Bliss|Mr. Bliss]]'', ''[[Roverandom]]'', ''[[Smith of Wootton Major]]'', ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'' and ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]''. ''Roverandom'' and ''Smith of Wootton Major'', like ''[[The Hobbit]]'', borrowed ideas from his legendarium. ''Leaf by Niggle'' appears to be an autobiographical work, where a "very small man", Niggle, keeps painting leaves until finally he ends up with a tree.<ref>{{cite web|author =Site Editor|year=2005|url=http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/reviews/leafbyniggle.htm| title=Leaf by Niggle - a symbolic story about a small painter|format=HTML|work = Leaf by Niggle|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref>
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In addition to his [[mythopoeia|mythological compositions]], Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children.<ref>{{cite web|last=Phillip|first=Norman|year=2005|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-mag67.html| title=The Prevalance of Hobbits|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> He wrote annual Christmas letters from [[Wikipedia:Father Christmas|Father Christmas]] for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as ''[[Wikipedia:The Father Christmas Letters|The Father Christmas Letters]]''). Other stories included ''[[Wikipedia:Mr. Bliss|Mr. Bliss]]'', ''[[Roverandom]]'', ''[[Smith of Wootton Major]]'', ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'' and ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]''. ''Roverandom'' and ''Smith of Wootton Major'', like ''[[The Hobbit]]'', borrowed ideas from his legendarium. ''Leaf by Niggle'' appears to be an autobiographical work, where a "very small man", Niggle, keeps painting leaves until finally he ends up with a tree.<ref>{{cite web|author =Site Editor|year=2005|url=http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/reviews/leafbyniggle.htm| title=Leaf by Niggle - a symbolic story about a small painter|work = Leaf by Niggle|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref>
   
Tolkien never expected his fictional stories to become popular, but he was persuaded by C.S. Lewis to publish a book he had written for his own children called ''[[The Hobbit]]'' in 1937.<ref>{{cite web|author =Times Editorial Staff|year=September 3, [[1973]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-obit.html| title=J.R.R. Tolkien Dead at 81: Wrote "The Lord of the Rings"|format=HTML|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> However, the book attracted adult readers as well, and it became popular enough for the publisher, [[wikipedia:George Allen & Unwin|Allen & Unwin]], to ask Tolkien to work on a sequel.
+
Tolkien never expected his fictional stories to become popular, but he was persuaded by C.S. Lewis to publish a book he had written for his own children called ''[[The Hobbit]]'' in 1937.<ref>{{cite web|author =Times Editorial Staff|year=September 3, [[1973]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-obit.html| title=J.R.R. Tolkien Dead at 81: Wrote "The Lord of the Rings"|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> However, the book attracted adult readers as well, and it became popular enough for the publisher, [[wikipedia:George Allen & Unwin|Allen & Unwin]], to ask Tolkien to work on a sequel.
   
 
Even though he felt uninspired on the topic, this request prompted Tolkien to begin what would become his most famous work: the epic three-volume novel ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' (published 1954&ndash;55). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for ''The Lord of the Rings'', during which time he received the constant support of [[The Inklings]], in particular his closest friend [[C.S. Lewis]], the author of ''[[wikipedia:The Chronicles of Narnia|The Chronicles of Narnia]]''. Both ''[[The Hobbit]]'' and ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' are set against the background of ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', but in a time long after it.
 
Even though he felt uninspired on the topic, this request prompted Tolkien to begin what would become his most famous work: the epic three-volume novel ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' (published 1954&ndash;55). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for ''The Lord of the Rings'', during which time he received the constant support of [[The Inklings]], in particular his closest friend [[C.S. Lewis]], the author of ''[[wikipedia:The Chronicles of Narnia|The Chronicles of Narnia]]''. Both ''[[The Hobbit]]'' and ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' are set against the background of ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', but in a time long after it.
   
Tolkien at first intended ''The Lord of the Rings'' as a children's tale like ''The Hobbit'', but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing.<ref>{{cite web|author =Times Editorial Staff|year=June 5, [[1955]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-oxford.html| title=Oxford Calling|format=HTML|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref>Though a direct sequel to ''The Hobbit'', it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense [[Wikipedia:back story|back story]] of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' and other volumes. Tolkien's influence weighs heavily on the [[fantasy fiction|fantasy]] genre that grew up after the success of ''The Lord of the Rings''.
+
Tolkien at first intended ''The Lord of the Rings'' as a children's tale like ''The Hobbit'', but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing.<ref>{{cite web|author =Times Editorial Staff|year=June 5, [[1955]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-oxford.html| title=Oxford Calling|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> Though a direct sequel to ''The Hobbit'', it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense [[Wikipedia:back story|back story]] of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' and other volumes. Tolkien's influence weighs heavily on the [[fantasy fiction|fantasy]] genre that grew up after the success of ''The Lord of the Rings''.
   
 
Tolkien continued to work on the history of Middle-earth until his death. His son [[Christopher Tolkien|Christopher]], with some assistance from fantasy writer [[Wikipedia:Guy Gavriel Kay|Guy Gavriel Kay]], organised some of this material into one volume, published as ''The Silmarillion'' in 1977. In 1980 Christopher Tolkien followed this with a collection of more fragmentary material under the title ''[[Unfinished Tales]]'', and in subsequent years he published a massive amount of background material on the creation of Middle-earth in the twelve volumes of ''[[The History of Middle-earth]]''.
 
Tolkien continued to work on the history of Middle-earth until his death. His son [[Christopher Tolkien|Christopher]], with some assistance from fantasy writer [[Wikipedia:Guy Gavriel Kay|Guy Gavriel Kay]], organised some of this material into one volume, published as ''The Silmarillion'' in 1977. In 1980 Christopher Tolkien followed this with a collection of more fragmentary material under the title ''[[Unfinished Tales]]'', and in subsequent years he published a massive amount of background material on the creation of Middle-earth in the twelve volumes of ''[[The History of Middle-earth]]''.
All these posthumous works contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress, and Tolkien only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not even complete consistency to be found between ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Hobbit'', the two most closely related works, because Tolkien was never able to fully integrate all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing ''The Hobbit'' for a third edition, that he would have preferred to completely rewrite the entire book.<ref>{{cite web|last= Martinez |first=Michael|year=December 7th, 2004|url=http://www.merp.com/essays/MichaelMartinez/michaelmartinezsuite101essay122| title=Middle-Earth Revised, Again|format=HTML|work = Merp.com|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref>
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All these posthumous works contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress, and Tolkien only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not even complete consistency to be found between ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Hobbit'', the two most closely related works, because Tolkien was never able to fully integrate all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing ''The Hobbit'' for a third edition, that he would have preferred to completely rewrite the entire book.<ref>{{cite web|last= Martinez |first=Michael|year=December 7th, 2004|url=http://www.merp.com/essays/MichaelMartinez/michaelmartinezsuite101essay122| title=Middle-Earth Revised, Again|work = Merp.com|accessdate=2006-03-13}}</ref>
   
''The Lord of the Rings'' became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the twentieth century, judged by both sales and reader surveys.<ref>{{cite web|author= Seiler, Andy |year= December 16, [[2003]]|url=http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2003-12-12-lotr-main_x.htm| title='Rings' comes full circle|format=HTML|work = USA Today|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> In the 2003 "[[Wikipedia:Big Read|Big Read]]" survey conducted by the [[BBC]], ''The Lord of the Rings'' was found to be the "Nation's Best-loved Book". Australians voted ''The Lord of the Rings'' "[[Wikipedia:My Favourite Book|My Favourite Book]]" in a 2004 survey conducted by the [[Wikipedia:Australian Broadcasting Corporation|Australian ABC]].<ref>{{cite web|author= Cooper, Callista |year= December 5, [[2005]]|url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1523327.htm| title=Epic trilogy tops favorite film poll|format=HTML|work = ABC News Online|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> In a 1999 poll of [[Wikipedia:Amazon.com|Amazon.com]] customers, ''The Lord of the Rings'' was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium".<ref>{{cite web|author= O'Hehir, Andrew |year= June 4, [[2001]]|url=http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/06/04/tolkien/| title=The book of the century|format=HTML|work = Salon.com|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> In 2002 Tolkien was voted the ninety-second "[[Wikipedia:100 Greatest Britons|greatest Briton]]" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted thirty-fifth in the [[Wikipedia:SABC3's Great South Africans|SABC3's Great South Africans]], the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited just to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK’s "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found ''The Lord of the Rings'' (''[[Wikipedia:de:Der Herr der Ringe|Der Herr der Ringe]]'') to be their favourite work of literature.<ref>{{cite web|author =Diver, Krysia|year=October 5, [[2004]]|url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/04/1096871805007.html?from=storyrhs| title=A lord for Germany|format=HTML|work =The Sydney Morning Herald|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref>
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''The Lord of the Rings'' became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the twentieth century, judged by both sales and reader surveys.<ref>{{cite web|author= Seiler, Andy |year= December 16, [[2003]]|url=http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2003-12-12-lotr-main_x.htm| title='Rings' comes full circle|work = USA Today|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> In the 2003 "[[Wikipedia:Big Read|Big Read]]" survey conducted by the [[BBC]], ''The Lord of the Rings'' was found to be the "Nation's Best-loved Book". Australians voted ''The Lord of the Rings'' "[[Wikipedia:My Favourite Book|My Favourite Book]]" in a 2004 survey conducted by the [[Wikipedia:Australian Broadcasting Corporation|Australian ABC]].<ref>{{cite web|author= Cooper, Callista |year= December 5, [[2005]]|url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1523327.htm| title=Epic trilogy tops favorite film poll|work = ABC News Online|accessdate=2006-03-12|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20051229021306/http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1523327.htm|archivedate=2005-12-29}}</ref> In a 1999 poll of [[Wikipedia:Amazon.com|Amazon.com]] customers, ''The Lord of the Rings'' was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium".<ref>{{cite web|author= O'Hehir, Andrew |year= June 4, [[2001]]|url=http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/06/04/tolkien/| title=The book of the century|work = Salon.com|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> In 2002 Tolkien was voted the ninety-second "[[Wikipedia:100 Greatest Britons|greatest Briton]]" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted thirty-fifth in the [[Wikipedia:SABC3's Great South Africans|SABC3's Great South Africans]], the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited just to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK’s "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found ''The Lord of the Rings'' (''[[Wikipedia:de:Der Herr der Ringe|Der Herr der Ringe]]'') to be their favourite work of literature.<ref>{{cite web|author =Diver, Krysia|year=October 5, [[2004]]|url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/04/1096871805007.html?from=storyrhs| title=A lord for Germany|work =The Sydney Morning Herald|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref>
   
 
===Manuscripts===
 
===Manuscripts===
Early drafts of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' (originally titled "''The Magic Ring''") were sold to [[Wikipedia:Marquette University|Marquette University]] in [[Wikipedia:Milwaukee|Milwaukee]], [[Wikipedia:Wisconsin|Wisconsin]], in 1956 for 1,500 pounds sterling (about US$4,700). Over 11,000 pages are included, text and a few illustrations.<ref>{{cite web|author=Marquette University|date=2003-03-04|url=http://www.marquette.edu/library/collections/archives/tolkien.html|title=J.R.R. Tolkien Collection|work=|accessdate=2007-04-16}}</ref>. Other original material survives at [[Wikipedia:Oxford University|Oxford]]'s [[Wikipedia:Bodleian Library|Bodleian Library]].Marquette has the manuscripts and proofs of ''[[The Hobbit]]'', and other manuscripts, including ''Farmer Giles of Ham'', while the Bodleian holds ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' papers and Tolkien's academic work.<ref>{{cite web|author =McDowell, Edwin |year=September 4, [[1983]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-revisited.html| title=Middle Earth Revisited|format=HTML|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref>
+
Early drafts of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' (originally titled "''The Magic Ring''") were sold to [[Wikipedia:Marquette University|Marquette University]] in [[Wikipedia:Milwaukee|Milwaukee]], [[Wikipedia:Wisconsin|Wisconsin]], in 1956 for 1,500 pounds sterling (about US$4,700). Over 11,000 pages are included, text and a few illustrations.<ref>{{cite web|author=Marquette University|date=2003-03-04|url=http://www.marquette.edu/library/collections/archives/tolkien.html|title=J.R.R. Tolkien Collection|work=|accessdate=2007-04-16}}</ref> Other original material survives at [[Wikipedia:Oxford University|Oxford]]'s [[Wikipedia:Bodleian Library|Bodleian Library]]. Marquette has the manuscripts and proofs of ''[[The Hobbit]]'', and other manuscripts, including ''Farmer Giles of Ham'', while the Bodleian holds ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' papers and Tolkien's academic work.<ref>{{cite web|author =McDowell, Edwin |year=September 4, [[1983]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-revisited.html| title=Middle Earth Revisited|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref>
   
 
==Languages==
 
==Languages==
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Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of [[Wikipedia:language|language]] and [[Wikipedia:philology|philology]]. He specialised in [[Wikipedia:Ancient Greek|Greek]] philology in college, and in 1915 graduated with [[Wikipedia:Old Icelandic|Old Icelandic]] as special subject. He worked for the [[Wikipedia:Oxford English Dictionary|Oxford English Dictionary]] from 1918. In 1920, he went to [[Wikipedia:Leeds|Leeds]] as Reader in English Language, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of [[Wikipedia:Linguistic|linguistics]] from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English [[Wikipedia:heroic verse|heroic verse]], history of English, various Old English and [[Wikipedia:Middle English|Middle English]] texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory [[Wikipedia:Germanic languages|Germanic]] philology, [[Wikipedia:Gothic language|Gothic]], Old Icelandic, and [[Wikipedia:Medieval Welsh|Medieval Welsh]]. When in 1925, aged 33, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a "[[Wikipedia:Viking revival|Viking Club]]".<ref>(Letter dated 27 June 1925 to the Electors of the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford, ''Letters'', no. 7)</ref>
 
Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of [[Wikipedia:language|language]] and [[Wikipedia:philology|philology]]. He specialised in [[Wikipedia:Ancient Greek|Greek]] philology in college, and in 1915 graduated with [[Wikipedia:Old Icelandic|Old Icelandic]] as special subject. He worked for the [[Wikipedia:Oxford English Dictionary|Oxford English Dictionary]] from 1918. In 1920, he went to [[Wikipedia:Leeds|Leeds]] as Reader in English Language, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of [[Wikipedia:Linguistic|linguistics]] from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English [[Wikipedia:heroic verse|heroic verse]], history of English, various Old English and [[Wikipedia:Middle English|Middle English]] texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory [[Wikipedia:Germanic languages|Germanic]] philology, [[Wikipedia:Gothic language|Gothic]], Old Icelandic, and [[Wikipedia:Medieval Welsh|Medieval Welsh]]. When in 1925, aged 33, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a "[[Wikipedia:Viking revival|Viking Club]]".<ref>(Letter dated 27 June 1925 to the Electors of the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford, ''Letters'', no. 7)</ref>
   
Privately, Tolkien was attracted to "things of [[Wikipedia:race|racial]] and linguistic significance", and he entertained notions of an inherited taste of language, which he termed the "native tongue" as opposed to "cradle tongue" in his 1955 lecture ''[[wikipedia:English and Welsh|English and Welsh]]'', which is crucial to his understanding of race and language. He considered [[Wikipedia:West Midlands (region)|west-midland]] Middle English his own "native tongue", and, as he wrote to [[wikipedia:W. H. Auden|W. H. Auden]] in 1955 <ref>(''Letters'', no. 163)</ref>, "I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)"
+
Privately, Tolkien was attracted to "things of [[Wikipedia:race|racial]] and linguistic significance", and he entertained notions of an inherited taste of language, which he termed the "native tongue" as opposed to "cradle tongue" in his 1955 lecture ''[[wikipedia:English and Welsh|English and Welsh]]'', which is crucial to his understanding of race and language. He considered [[Wikipedia:West Midlands (region)|west-midland]] Middle English his own "native tongue", and, as he wrote to [[wikipedia:W. H. Auden|W. H. Auden]] in 1955,<ref>(''Letters'', no. 163)</ref> "I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)"
   
Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for the construction of [[Wikipedia:artificial language|artificial language]]s. The best developed of these are [[Quenya]] and [[Sindarin]], the etymological connection between which are at the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elvenlatin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from [[Wikipedia:Finnish language|Finnish]] and Greek <ref>(''Letters'', no. 144, 25 April 1954, to Naomi Mitchison)</ref>. A notable addition came in late 1945 with [[Wikipedia:Numenorean language|Numenorean]], a language of a "faintly [[Wikipedia:Semitic languages|Semitic]] flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis myth, which by ''[[The Notion Club Papers]]'' ties directly into his ideas about inheritability of language, and via the "[[Second Age]]" and the [[Wikipedia:Eärendil the Mariner|Eärendil]] myth was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's twentieth-century "real primary world" with the mythical past of his Middle-earth.
+
Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for the construction of [[Wikipedia:artificial language|artificial language]]s. The best developed of these are [[Quenya]] and [[Sindarin]], the etymological connection between which are at the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elvenlatin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from [[Wikipedia:Finnish language|Finnish]] and Greek.<ref>(''Letters'', no. 144, 25 April 1954, to Naomi Mitchison)</ref> A notable addition came in late 1945 with [[Wikipedia:Numenorean language|Numenorean]], a language of a "faintly [[Wikipedia:Semitic languages|Semitic]] flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis myth, which by ''[[The Notion Club Papers]]'' ties directly into his ideas about inheritability of language, and via the "[[Second Age]]" and the [[Wikipedia:Eärendil the Mariner|Eärendil]] myth was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's twentieth-century "real primary world" with the mythical past of his Middle-earth.
   
Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of [[wikipedia:Auxiliary languages|auxiliary languages]]: In 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture ''[[wikipedia:A Secret Vice|A Secret Vice]]'', "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he concluded that "[[wikipedia:Volapük|Volapük]], [[wikipedia:Esperanto|Esperanto]], [[wikipedia:Ido|Ido]], Novial, &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends" <ref>(''Letters'', no. 180)</ref>.
+
Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of [[wikipedia:Auxiliary languages|auxiliary languages]]: In 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture ''[[wikipedia:A Secret Vice|A Secret Vice]]'', "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he concluded that "[[wikipedia:Volapük|Volapük]], [[wikipedia:Esperanto|Esperanto]], [[wikipedia:Ido|Ido]], Novial, &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends".<ref>(''Letters'', no. 180)</ref>
   
 
The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's revival of the spellings ''dwarves'' and ''elvish'' (instead of ''dwarfs'' and ''elfish''), which had not been in use since the mid-1800s and earlier. Other terms he has coined such as legendarium and [[wikipedia:Eucatastrophe|eucatastrophe]] are mainly used in connection with Tolkien's work.
 
The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's revival of the spellings ''dwarves'' and ''elvish'' (instead of ''dwarfs'' and ''elfish''), which had not been in use since the mid-1800s and earlier. Other terms he has coined such as legendarium and [[wikipedia:Eucatastrophe|eucatastrophe]] are mainly used in connection with Tolkien's work.
Line 114: Line 114:
 
:''The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.'' <ref>(''Letters'', no. 131)</ref>
 
:''The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.'' <ref>(''Letters'', no. 131)</ref>
   
The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were [[Pauline Baynes]] (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]]'' and ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'') and [[Donald Swann]] (who set the music to ''[[The Road Goes Ever On]]''). Queen [[Margrethe II of Denmark]] created illustrations to ''The Lord of the Rings'' in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity to the style of his own drawings.<ref>{{cite web|author= Thygesen, Peter |year= Autumn, 1999|url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3760/is_199910/ai_n8868143| title=Queen Margrethe II: Denmark's monarch for a modern age|format=HTML|work = Scandinavian Review|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref>
+
The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were [[Pauline Baynes]] (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Bombadil]]'' and ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]'') and [[Donald Swann]] (who set the music to ''[[The Road Goes Ever On]]''). Queen [[Margrethe II of Denmark]] created illustrations to ''The Lord of the Rings'' in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity to the style of his own drawings.<ref>{{cite web|author= Thygesen, Peter |year= Autumn, 1999|url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3760/is_199910/ai_n8868143| title=Queen Margrethe II: Denmark's monarch for a modern age|work = Scandinavian Review|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref>
   
 
But Tolkien was not fond of all the artistic representation of his works that were produced in his lifetime, and was sometimes harshly disapproving.
 
But Tolkien was not fond of all the artistic representation of his works that were produced in his lifetime, and was sometimes harshly disapproving.
Line 125: Line 125:
   
 
And in 1958, in an irritated reaction to a proposed movie adaptation of ''The Lord of the Rings'' by Morton Grady Zimmerman he writes,
 
And in 1958, in an irritated reaction to a proposed movie adaptation of ''The Lord of the Rings'' by Morton Grady Zimmerman he writes,
:''I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about.''<ref>(''Letters'', no. 207)</ref>
+
:''I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about.''<ref>(''Letters'', no. 207)</ref>
   
 
He went on to criticise the script scene by scene (''"yet one more scene of screams and rather meaningless slashings"''). But Tolkien was in principle open to the idea of a movie adaptation. He sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'' to [[United Artists]] in 1968, while, guided by scepticism towards future productions, he forbade that [[Wikipedia:The Walt Disney Company|Disney]] should ever be involved:
 
He went on to criticise the script scene by scene (''"yet one more scene of screams and rather meaningless slashings"''). But Tolkien was in principle open to the idea of a movie adaptation. He sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'' to [[United Artists]] in 1968, while, guided by scepticism towards future productions, he forbade that [[Wikipedia:The Walt Disney Company|Disney]] should ever be involved:
 
:''It might be advisable [&hellip;] to let the Americans do what seems good to them &ndash; as long as it was possible [&hellip;] to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).''<ref>(''Letters'', no. 13)</ref>
 
:''It might be advisable [&hellip;] to let the Americans do what seems good to them &ndash; as long as it was possible [&hellip;] to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).''<ref>(''Letters'', no. 13)</ref>
   
United Artists never made a film, though at least [[John Boorman]] was planning a film in the early seventies. It would have been a live-action film, which apparently would have been much more to Tolkien's liking than an animated film. In 1976 the rights were sold to [[Tolkien Enterprises]], a division of the [[Saul Zaentz]] Company, and the first movie adaptation (an animated [[Wikipedia:rotoscoping|rotoscoping]] film) of ''The Lord of the Rings'' appeared only after Tolkien's death (in 1978, directed by [[Ralph Bakshi]]). The screenplay was written by the fantasy writer [[Wikipedia:Peter S. Beagle|Peter S. Beagle]]. This first adaptation, however, only contained the first half of the story that is ''The Lord of the Rings''.<ref>{{cite web|author= Canby, Vincent |year= November 15, [[1978]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-lordfilm.html| title= Film: 'The Lord of the Rings' From Ralph Bakshi|format=HTML|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> In 1977 an animated TV production of ''The Hobbit'' was made by [[Rankin-Bass]], and in 1980 they produced an animated film titled ''The Return of the King'', which covered some of the portion of ''The Lord of the Rings'' that Bakshi was unable to complete. In 2001&ndash;3, [[New Line Cinema]] released ''The Lord of the Rings'' as a [[The Lord of the Rings film trilogy|trilogy]] of live-action films, directed by [[Peter Jackson]].
+
United Artists never made a film, though at least [[John Boorman]] was planning a film in the early seventies. It would have been a live-action film, which apparently would have been much more to Tolkien's liking than an animated film. In 1976 the rights were sold to [[Tolkien Enterprises]], a division of the [[Saul Zaentz]] Company, and the first movie adaptation (an animated [[Wikipedia:rotoscoping|rotoscoping]] film) of ''The Lord of the Rings'' appeared only after Tolkien's death (in 1978, directed by [[Ralph Bakshi]]). The screenplay was written by the fantasy writer [[Wikipedia:Peter S. Beagle|Peter S. Beagle]]. This first adaptation, however, only contained the first half of the story that is ''The Lord of the Rings''.<ref>{{cite web|author= Canby, Vincent |year= November 15, [[1978]]|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/tolkien-lordfilm.html| title= Film: 'The Lord of the Rings' From Ralph Bakshi|work = New York Times|accessdate=2006-03-12}}</ref> In 1977 an animated TV production of ''The Hobbit'' was made by [[Rankin-Bass]], and in 1980 they produced an animated film titled ''The Return of the King'', which covered some of the portion of ''The Lord of the Rings'' that Bakshi was unable to complete. In 2001&ndash;3, [[New Line Cinema]] released ''The Lord of the Rings'' as a [[The Lord of the Rings film trilogy|trilogy]] of live-action films, directed by [[Peter Jackson]].
   
 
{{Tolkien}}
 
{{Tolkien}}
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* 1936 ''[[wikipedia:Songs for the Philologists|Songs for the Philologists]]'', with [[E.V. Gordon]] et al.
 
* 1936 ''[[wikipedia:Songs for the Philologists|Songs for the Philologists]]'', with [[E.V. Gordon]] et al.
* 1937 ''[[The Hobbit|The Hobbit or There and Back Again]]'', ISBN 0-618-00221-9 ([[wikipedia:Houghton Mifflin|Houghton Mifflin]]).
+
* 1937 ''[[The Hobbit|The Hobbit or There and Back Again]]'', ISBN 0-618-00221-9 ([[wikipedia:Houghton Mifflin|Houghton Mifflin]]).
 
* 1945 ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'' (short story)
 
* 1945 ''[[Leaf by Niggle]]'' (short story)
 
* 1945 ''[[wikipedia:The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun|The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun]]'', published in ''Welsh Review''
 
* 1945 ''[[wikipedia:The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun|The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun]]'', published in ''Welsh Review''
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| location = New York
 
| location = New York
 
| publisher = Ballantine Books
 
| publisher = Ballantine Books
| id = ISBN 0-04-928037-6
+
| isbn = 0-04-928037-6
 
}}
 
}}
 
*''Letters'': {{cite book
 
*''Letters'': {{cite book
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| location = London
 
| location = London
 
| publisher = George Allen & Unwin
 
| publisher = George Allen & Unwin
| id = ISBN 0-04-826005-3
+
| isbn = 0-04-826005-3
 
}}
 
}}
   
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| location = London, New York
 
| location = London, New York
 
| publisher = Routledge
 
| publisher = Routledge
| id = ISBN 0-415-28944-0
+
| isbn = 0-415-28944-0
 
}}
 
}}
 
* {{cite book
 
* {{cite book
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| location = Louisville
 
| location = Louisville
 
| publisher = University Press of Kentucky
 
| publisher = University Press of Kentucky
| id = ISBN 0-813-12301-1
+
| isbn = 0-813-12301-1
 
}}
 
}}
 
* {{cite book
 
* {{cite book
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| location = Boston
 
| location = Boston
 
| publisher = Houghton Mifflin Company
 
| publisher = Houghton Mifflin Company
| id =ISBN 0-395-28208-X
+
| isbn =0-395-28208-X
 
}}
 
}}
 
* {{cite book
 
* {{cite book
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| location = London
 
| location = London
 
| publisher = [[wikipedia:HarperCollins|Harper Collins Publishers]]
 
| publisher = [[wikipedia:HarperCollins|Harper Collins Publishers]]
| id = ISBN 000-274018-4
+
| isbn = 000-274018-4
 
}}
 
}}
 
* {{cite book
 
* {{cite book
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| location = London, Boston
 
| location = London, Boston
 
| publisher = Allen & Unwin
 
| publisher = Allen & Unwin
| id = ISBN 0-049-12016-6
+
| isbn = 0-049-12016-6
 
}}
 
}}
 
* {{cite book
 
* {{cite book
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| location = London
 
| location = London
 
| publisher = HarperCollins
 
| publisher = HarperCollins
| id = ISBN 0-26-110239-7
+
| isbn = 0-26-110239-7
 
}}
 
}}
 
* {{cite book
 
* {{cite book
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| title = Tolkien: A Biography
 
| title = Tolkien: A Biography
 
| publisher = New American Library
 
| publisher = New American Library
| id = ISBN 0451212428
+
| isbn = 0451212428
 
}}
 
}}
 
* {{cite book
 
* {{cite book
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| last = Carpenter
 
| last = Carpenter
 
| year = 1979
 
| year = 1979
| id = ISBN 0395276284
+
| isbn = 0395276284
 
}}
 
}}
 
* {{cite book
 
* {{cite book
Line 327: Line 327:
 
| last = Curry
 
| last = Curry
 
| year = 2004
 
| year = 2004
| id = ISBN 061847885X
+
| isbn = 061847885X
 
}}
 
}}
 
* {{cite book
 
* {{cite book
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| coauthors = David Porter
 
| coauthors = David Porter
 
| year = 2001
 
| year = 2001
| id = ISBN 1902694139
+
| isbn = 1902694139
 
}}
 
}}
 
* {{cite book
 
* {{cite book
Line 341: Line 341:
 
| coauthors = Jim Ware
 
| coauthors = Jim Ware
 
| year = 2003
 
| year = 2003
| id = ISBN 084238555X
+
| isbn = 084238555X
 
}}
 
}}
 
* {{cite book
 
* {{cite book
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| first = Colin | last = Duriez
 
| first = Colin | last = Duriez
 
| year = 2003
 
| year = 2003
| id = ISBN 1587680262
+
| isbn = 1587680262
 
}}
 
}}
   
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*[[Wikipedia:J. R. R. Tolkien|J.R.R. Tolkien]] on Wikipedia
 
*[[Wikipedia:J. R. R. Tolkien|J.R.R. Tolkien]] on Wikipedia
   
===Biographical:===
+
===Biographical===
  +
  +
*{{TGlink|J.R.R. Tolkien}}
 
*[http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html Tolkien Biography] (The Tolkien Society)
 
*[http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html Tolkien Biography] (The Tolkien Society)
 
*[http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/oxfordtour/tolkientour/index.html J. R. R. Tolkien's Oxford &ndash; 360º Photographic Tour]
 
*[http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/oxfordtour/tolkientour/index.html J. R. R. Tolkien's Oxford &ndash; 360º Photographic Tour]
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*[http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1456 Find-A-Grave pictures of Tolkien's grave]
 
*[http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1456 Find-A-Grave pictures of Tolkien's grave]
   
===Bibliographical:===
+
===Bibliographical===
 
*[http://www.tolkienbooks.net/ An Illustrated Tolkien Bibliography]
 
*[http://www.tolkienbooks.net/ An Illustrated Tolkien Bibliography]
 
*[http://www.lotrlibrary.com/ ''The Lord of the Rings'' Fanatics Library] Tolkienian <!--- ?? ---> Information
 
*[http://www.lotrlibrary.com/ ''The Lord of the Rings'' Fanatics Library] Tolkienian <!--- ?? ---> Information
Line 381: Line 383:
 
*[http://donh.best.vwh.net/Languages/tolkien1.html A Philologist on Esperanto] by J. R. R. Tolkien
 
*[http://donh.best.vwh.net/Languages/tolkien1.html A Philologist on Esperanto] by J. R. R. Tolkien
   
===Databases/Directories:===
+
===Databases/Directories===
*[http://www.tolkien.co.uk/ HarperCollins Tolkien website]
+
*[http://www.tolkien.co.uk/ HarperCollins Tolkien website]
 
*[http://onering.virbius.com/ One Ring: The Complete Guide to Tolkien Online]
 
*[http://onering.virbius.com/ One Ring: The Complete Guide to Tolkien Online]
 
*[http://www.glyphweb.com/ARDA/ The Encyclopedia of Arda]
 
*[http://www.glyphweb.com/ARDA/ The Encyclopedia of Arda]
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*[http://tolkien.slimy.com/ The Tolkien Meta-FAQ] (slimy.com)
 
*[http://tolkien.slimy.com/ The Tolkien Meta-FAQ] (slimy.com)
   
===Societies:===
+
===Societies===
 
*[http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/ The Tolkien Society]
 
*[http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/ The Tolkien Society]
 
*[http://www.mythsoc.org/ The Mythopoeic Society]
 
*[http://www.mythsoc.org/ The Mythopoeic Society]
   
===Derivative art (see also [[Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien#External links|main article]]):===
+
===Derivative art (see also main article)===
 
*[http://www.tolkien-music.com/ Music inspired by Tolkien]
 
*[http://www.tolkien-music.com/ Music inspired by Tolkien]
 
*[http://www.henneth-annun.net/ Stories inspired by Tolkien]
 
*[http://www.henneth-annun.net/ Stories inspired by Tolkien]
 
[[Category:Real People|Tolkien, J.R.R.]]
 
   
 
[[de:J. R. R. Tolkien]]
 
[[de:J. R. R. Tolkien]]
 
[[es:J. R. R. Tolkien]]
 
[[es:J. R. R. Tolkien]]
  +
[[ca:John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]]
 
[[fr:J. R. R. Tolkien]]
 
[[fr:J. R. R. Tolkien]]
 
[[it:J.R.R. Tolkien]]
 
[[it:J.R.R. Tolkien]]
 
[[ja:J・R・R・トールキン]]
 
[[ja:J・R・R・トールキン]]
  +
[[la:Iohannes Raginualdus Raguel Tolkien]]
 
[[nl:John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]]
 
[[nl:John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]]
  +
[[pl:J. R. R. Tolkien]]
 
[[pt-br:J.R.R. Tolkien]]
 
[[pt-br:J.R.R. Tolkien]]
 
[[ru:Дж. Р. Р. Толкин]]
 
[[ru:Дж. Р. Р. Толкин]]
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"Worth fighting for good in this world"
J.R.R. Tolkien
Jrrt 1972 pipe

Tolkien in 1972, in his study at Merton Street (from J. R. R. Tolkien. A Biography by H. Carpenter)

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973) is best known as the author of The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings. He was a professor of Anglo-Saxon language at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and of English studies English language and literature, also at Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. He was a strongly committed Roman Catholic. Tolkien was a close friend of C.S. Lewis, with whom he shared membership in the literary discussion group The Inklings.

In addition to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's published fiction includes The Silmarillion and other posthumously published books about what he called a legendarium, a fictional mythology of the remote past of Earth, called Arda, and Middle-earth (from middangeard, the lands inhabitable by Men) in particular. Most of these works were compiled from Tolkien's notes by his son Christopher Tolkien. The enduring popularity and influence of Tolkien's works have established him as the "father of the modern high fantasy genre". Tolkien's other published fiction includes adaptations of stories originally told to his children and not directly related to the legendarium.

The Tolkien family

As far as is known, most of Tolkien's paternal ancestors were craftsmen. The Tolkien family had its roots in Saxony (Germany), but had been living in England since the eighteenth century, becoming "quickly and intensely English (not British)".[1] The surname Tolkien is anglicized from Tollkiehn (i.e. German tollkühn, "foolhardy", literally "insane(ly)-brave", the etymological English translation would be dull-keen, a literal translation of oxymoron). The surname Rashbold of two characters in The Notion Club Papers is a pun on this.[2]

Biography

J.R.R._Tolkien

Childhood

Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (now Free State), South Africa, to Arthur Tolkien, an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel, who was born on February 17, 1894.[3]

While living in Africa, he was bitten by a large tarantula in the garden, an event which would have later parallels in his stories.[4] When he was three, Tolkien went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them.[5] This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Birmingham, England. Soon after in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham.[6] He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill, Moseley Bog, the Clent Hills, and Lickey Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books along with other Worcestershire towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt's farm of Bag End, the name of which would be used in his fiction.[7]

Jrrt 1905

Ronald and Hilary Tolkien in 1905 (from Carpenter's Biography)

Mabel tutored her two sons, and Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil.[8] She taught him a great deal of botany, and she awoke in her son the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees. But his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early.[9] He could read by the age of four, and could write fluently soon afterwards. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham and, while a student there, helped "line the route" for the coronation parade of King George V, being posted just outside the gates of Buckingham Palace.[10] He later attended St. Philip's School and Exter College, Oxford.

His mother converted to Roman Catholicism in 1900 despite vehement protests by her Baptist family.[11] She died of diabetes in 1904, when Tolkien was twelve, at Fern Cottage, Rednal, which they were then renting. For the rest of his life, Tolkien felt that she had become a martyr for her faith; this had a profound effect on his own Catholic beliefs.[12] Tolkien's devout faith was significant in the conversion of C.S. Lewis to Christianity, though Tolkien was greatly disappointed that Lewis chose to follow Anglicanism.[13]

During his subsequent orphanhood, he was brought up by Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham. He lived there in the shadow of Perrot's Folly and the Victorian tower of Edgbaston waterworks, which may have influenced the images of the dark towers within his works. Another strong influence was the romantic medievalist paintings of Edward Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the Birngham Museum and Art Gallery has a large and world-renowned collection of works and had put it on free public display from around 1908.

Jrrt 1911

J. R. R. Tolkien in 1911 (from Carpenter's Biography).

Youth

Tolkien met and fell in love with Edith Mary Bratt, three years his senior, at the age of sixteen. Father Francis forbade him from meeting, talking, or even corresponding with her until he was twenty-one. He obeyed this prohibition to the letter.[14]

In 1911 at age 19, while they were at King Edward's School, Birmingham, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society which they called "the T.C.B.S.", the initials standing for "Tea Club and Barrovian Society", alluding to their fondness of drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, illicitly, in the school library.[15] After leaving school, the members stayed in touch, and in December 1914, they held a "Council" in London, at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry.

In the summer of 1911, Tolkien went on holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter,[16] noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of twelve hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, and on to camp in the moraines beyond Mürren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembers his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Siilberhorn ("the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams"). They went across the Kleine Scheidegg on to Grindelwald and across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass and through the upper Valais to Brig, and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt.

Tolkien 1916

Tolkien in 1916, wearing his British Army uniform in a photograph from the middle years of WW1 (from Carpenter's Biography)

Young adulthood

On the evening of his twenty-first birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith a declaration of his love and asked her to marry him. She replied saying that she was already engaged but had done so because she had believed Tolkien had forgotten her. The two met up and beneath a railway viaduct renewed their love; Edith returned her ring and chose to marry Tolkien instead.[17] Following their engagement Edith converted to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence.[18] They were engaged in Birmingham, in January 1913, and married in Warwick, England, on March 22, 1916.[19]

With his childhood love of landscape, he visited Cornwall in 1914 and he was said to be deeply impressed by the singular Cornish coastline and sea.[20] After graduating from the University of Oxford (Exeter College, Oxford) with a first-class degree in English language in 1915, Tolkien joined the British Army effort in World War I and served as a second lieutenant in the eleventh battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers.[21] His battalion was moved to France in 1916, where Tolkien served as a communications officer during the Battle of the Somme until he came down with trench fever on October 27 and was moved back to England on November 8.[22] Many of his fellow servicemen, as well as many of his closest friends, were killed in the war. During his recovery in a cottage in Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England, he began to work on what he called The Book of Lost Tales, beginning with The Fall of Gondolin. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps, and was promoted to lieutenant. When he was stationed at Kingston upon Hull, one day he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and Edith began to dance for him in a thick grove of hemlock; "We walked in a wood where hemlock was growing, a sea of white flowers". This incident inspired the account of the meeting of Beren and Lúthien, and Tolkien often referred to Edith as his Lúthien.[23]

Tenure

Tolkien's first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary.[24] In 1920 he took up a post as Reader in English language at the University of Leeds, and in 1924 was made a professor there, but in 1925 he returned to Oxford as a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College.[25]

Tolkien and Edith had four children: John Francis Reuel (November 17, 1917 - January 22, 2003), Michael Hilary Reuel (October 1920–1984), Christopher John Reuel (1924) and Priscilla Anne Reuel (1929). Tolkien assisted Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the unearthing of a Roman Asclepieion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928.[26] During his time at Pembroke, Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings. Of Tolkien's academic publications, the 1936 lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" had a lasting influence on Beowulf research.[27] Lewis E. Nicholson noted that the article Tolkien wrote about Beowulf is "widely recognized as a turning point in Beowulfian criticism", noting that Tolkien established the primacy of the poetic nature of the work as opposed to the purely linguistic elements.[28] He also revealed in his famous article how highly he regarded Beowulf; "Beowulf is among my most valued sources ..." And indeed, there are many influences of Beowulf found in the Lord of the Rings.[29]

In 1945, he moved to Merton College, Oxford, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien completed The Lord of the Rings in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches. During the 1950s, Tolkien spent many of his long academic holidays at the home of his son John Francis in Stoke-on-Trent. Tolkien had an intense dislike for the side effects of industrialisation which he considered a devouring of the English countryside. For most of his adult life he eschewed automobiles, preferring to ride a bicycle.[30] This attitude is perceptible from some parts of his work such as the forced industrialisation of The Shire in The Lord of the Rings.

Jrrt 1972 tree

The last known photograph of Tolkien, taken 9 October, 1972, next to one of his favourite trees (a Pinus nigra) in the Botanic Garden, Oxford.

W.H. Auden was a frequent correspondent and long-time friend of Tolkien's, initiated by Auden's fascination with The Lord of the Rings: Auden was among the most prominent early critics to praise the work. Tolkien wrote in a 1971 letter, "I am [...] very deeply in Auden's debt in recent years. His support of me and interest in my work has been one of my chief encouragements. He gave me very good reviews, notices and letters from the beginning when it was by no means a popular thing to do. He was, in fact, sneered at for it.".[31]

Retirement and old age

During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien increasingly turned into a figure of public attention and literary fame. The sale of his books was so profitable that Tolkien regretted he had not taken early retirement.[32] While at first he wrote enthusiastic answers to reader inquiries, he became more and more suspicious of emerging Tolkien fandom, especially among the hippy movement in the USA.[33] In a 1972 letter he deplores having become a cult-figure, but admits that

even the nose of a very modest idol (younger than Chu-Bu and not much older than Sheemish) cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!.[34]

Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory,[35] and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth at the south coast. Tolkien was awarded a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on March 28, 1972.

Tolkiengrab

The grave of J. R. R. and Edith Tolkien, Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford.

Edith Tolkien died on November 29, 1971, at the age of eighty-two, and Tolkien had the name Lúthien engraved on the stone at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When Tolkien died 21 months later on September 2, 1973, at the age of 81, he was buried in the same grave, with Beren added to his name, so that the engraving now reads: Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889 - 1971 John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892–1973

Posthumously named after Tolkien are the Tolkien Road in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and the asteroid 2675 Tolkien. Tolkien Way in Stoke-on-Trent is named after J.R.R. Tolkien's son Father John Francis Tolkien who was the priest in charge at the nearby Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Angels and St. Peter in Chains.[36]

Writing

Jrrt lotr cover design

Cover design for the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien

Beginning with The Book of Lost Tales, written while recuperating from illness during World War I, Tolkien devised several themes that were reused in successive drafts of his legendarium. The two most prominent stories, the tales of Beren and Lúthien and that of Túrin, were carried forward into long narrative poems (published in The Lays of Beleriand). Tolkien wrote a brief summary of the mythology these poems were intended to represent, and that summary eventually evolved into The Silmarillion, an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. It was originally to be published along with the Lord of the Rings, but printing costs were very high in the post-war years, later leading to the Lord of the Rings being published in three books.[37] The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle-earth. From around 1936, he began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Númenor, which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis.

Tolkien was strongly influenced by Anglo-Saxon literature, Germanic and Norse mythologies, Finnish mythology, the Bible, and Greek mythology.[38] The works most often cited as sources for Tolkien's stories include Beowulf, the Kalevala, the Poetic Edda, the Volsunga saga and the Hervarar saga.[39] Tolkien himself acknowledged Homer, Oedipus, and the Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas.[40] His borrowings also came from numerous Middle English works and poems. A major philosophical influence on his writing is King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy known as the Lays of Boethius.[41] Characters in The Lord of the Rings such as Frodo, Treebeard and Elrond make noticeably Boethian remarks.

In addition to his mythological compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children.[42] He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters). Other stories included Mr. Bliss, Roverandom, Smith of Wootton Major, Farmer Giles of Ham and Leaf by Niggle. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium. Leaf by Niggle appears to be an autobiographical work, where a "very small man", Niggle, keeps painting leaves until finally he ends up with a tree.[43]

Tolkien never expected his fictional stories to become popular, but he was persuaded by C.S. Lewis to publish a book he had written for his own children called The Hobbit in 1937.[44] However, the book attracted adult readers as well, and it became popular enough for the publisher, Allen & Unwin, to ask Tolkien to work on a sequel.

Even though he felt uninspired on the topic, this request prompted Tolkien to begin what would become his most famous work: the epic three-volume novel The Lord of the Rings (published 1954–55). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for The Lord of the Rings, during which time he received the constant support of The Inklings, in particular his closest friend C.S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion, but in a time long after it.

Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings as a children's tale like The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing.[45] Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit, it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense back story of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes. Tolkien's influence weighs heavily on the fantasy genre that grew up after the success of The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien continued to work on the history of Middle-earth until his death. His son Christopher, with some assistance from fantasy writer Guy Gavriel Kay, organised some of this material into one volume, published as The Silmarillion in 1977. In 1980 Christopher Tolkien followed this with a collection of more fragmentary material under the title Unfinished Tales, and in subsequent years he published a massive amount of background material on the creation of Middle-earth in the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth. All these posthumous works contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress, and Tolkien only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not even complete consistency to be found between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the two most closely related works, because Tolkien was never able to fully integrate all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing The Hobbit for a third edition, that he would have preferred to completely rewrite the entire book.[46]

The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the twentieth century, judged by both sales and reader surveys.[47] In the 2003 "Big Read" survey conducted by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the "Nation's Best-loved Book". Australians voted The Lord of the Rings "My Favourite Book" in a 2004 survey conducted by the Australian ABC.[48] In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium".[49] In 2002 Tolkien was voted the ninety-second "greatest Briton" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted thirty-fifth in the SABC3's Great South Africans, the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited just to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK’s "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings (Der Herr der Ringe) to be their favourite work of literature.[50]

Manuscripts

Early drafts of The Lord of the Rings (originally titled "The Magic Ring") were sold to Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1956 for 1,500 pounds sterling (about US$4,700). Over 11,000 pages are included, text and a few illustrations.[51] Other original material survives at Oxford's Bodleian Library. Marquette has the manuscripts and proofs of The Hobbit, and other manuscripts, including Farmer Giles of Ham, while the Bodleian holds The Silmarillion papers and Tolkien's academic work.[52]

Languages

See also Languages of Middle-earth.

Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. He specialised in Greek philology in college, and in 1915 graduated with Old Icelandic as special subject. He worked for the Oxford English Dictionary from 1918. In 1920, he went to Leeds as Reader in English Language, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of linguistics from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English heroic verse, history of English, various Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. When in 1925, aged 33, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a "Viking Club".[53]

Privately, Tolkien was attracted to "things of racial and linguistic significance", and he entertained notions of an inherited taste of language, which he termed the "native tongue" as opposed to "cradle tongue" in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, which is crucial to his understanding of race and language. He considered west-midland Middle English his own "native tongue", and, as he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955,[54] "I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)"

Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for the construction of artificial languages. The best developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin, the etymological connection between which are at the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elvenlatin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish and Greek.[55] A notable addition came in late 1945 with Numenorean, a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis myth, which by The Notion Club Papers ties directly into his ideas about inheritability of language, and via the "Second Age" and the Eärendil myth was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's twentieth-century "real primary world" with the mythical past of his Middle-earth.

Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages: In 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture A Secret Vice, "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he concluded that "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends".[56]

The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's revival of the spellings dwarves and elvish (instead of dwarfs and elfish), which had not been in use since the mid-1800s and earlier. Other terms he has coined such as legendarium and eucatastrophe are mainly used in connection with Tolkien's work.

Works inspired by Tolkien

Main article: Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien

In a 1951 letter to Milton Waldman, Tolkien writes about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which

The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. [57]

The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were Pauline Baynes (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Farmer Giles of Ham) and Donald Swann (who set the music to The Road Goes Ever On). Queen Margrethe II of Denmark created illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity to the style of his own drawings.[58]

But Tolkien was not fond of all the artistic representation of his works that were produced in his lifetime, and was sometimes harshly disapproving.

In 1946, he rejects suggestions for illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of the Hobbit as "too Disnified",

Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of.[59]

He was sceptical of the emerging fandom in the United States, and in 1954 he returned proposals for the dust jackets of the American edition of The Lord of the Rings:

Thank you for sending me the projected 'blurbs', which I return. The Americans are not as a rule at all amenable to criticism or correction; but I think their effort is so poor that I feel constrained to make some effort to improve it.[60]

And in 1958, in an irritated reaction to a proposed movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings by Morton Grady Zimmerman he writes,

I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about.[61]

He went on to criticise the script scene by scene ("yet one more scene of screams and rather meaningless slashings"). But Tolkien was in principle open to the idea of a movie adaptation. He sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968, while, guided by scepticism towards future productions, he forbade that Disney should ever be involved:

It might be advisable […] to let the Americans do what seems good to them – as long as it was possible […] to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).[62]

United Artists never made a film, though at least John Boorman was planning a film in the early seventies. It would have been a live-action film, which apparently would have been much more to Tolkien's liking than an animated film. In 1976 the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company, and the first movie adaptation (an animated rotoscoping film) of The Lord of the Rings appeared only after Tolkien's death (in 1978, directed by Ralph Bakshi). The screenplay was written by the fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle. This first adaptation, however, only contained the first half of the story that is The Lord of the Rings.[63] In 1977 an animated TV production of The Hobbit was made by Rankin-Bass, and in 1980 they produced an animated film titled The Return of the King, which covered some of the portion of The Lord of the Rings that Bakshi was unable to complete. In 2001–3, New Line Cinema released The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy of live-action films, directed by Peter Jackson.

The Tolkien Family line

John Suffield
1833–1930
   
   
Emily Jane Sparrow
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
John Benjamin
1807–1896
   
   
Mary Jane Stowe
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Jane
   
   
Mabel
1870-1904
   
   
Arthur Reuel
1857-1896
   
   
Mabel
   
   
Grace
   
   
Florence
   
   
Wilfred
   
   
Laurence
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Edith Bratt
1889-1971
   
   
J.R.R. Tolkien
1892-1973
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Hilary Arthur Reuel
1894-1976
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
John
1917-2003
   
   
Michael
1920-1984
   
   
Christopher
b.1924-2020
   
   
Priscilla
b.1929-2022
   
   
   
   
Gabriel
b.1931
   
   
Julian
b.1935
   
   
Paul
b.1935
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Michael
b.1943
   
   
*Simon
b.1959
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Christopher
   
   
Tim
b.1962
   
   
Dominic
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Joan
b.1945
   
   
**Adam
b.1969
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Angela
   
   
Nicolas
   
   
Zoe
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Judith
b.1951
   
   
**Rachel
b.1971
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Stephen
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Royd Tolkien

(*Child of Faith=b.1928)
(**Children of Baillie=b.1941)


Bibliography

Fiction and poetry

See also Poems by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Academic works

  • 1922 A Middle English Vocabulary, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 168 pp.
  • 1925 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, co-edited with E.V. Gordon, Oxford University Press, 211 pp.; Revised edition 1967, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 232 pp.
  • 1925 Some Contributions to Middle-English Lexicography, published in The Review of English Studies, volume 1, no. 2, pp. 210-215.
  • 1925 The Devil's Coach Horses, published in The Review of English Studies, volume 1, no. 3, pp. 331-336.
  • 1929 Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad, published in Essays and Studies by members of the English Association, Oxford, volume 14, pp. 104-126.
  • 1932 The Name 'Nodens' , published in Report on the Excavation of the Prehistoric, Roman, and Post-Roman Site in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, Oxford, University Press for The Society of Antiquaries.
  • 1932–34 Sigelwara Land parts I and II, in Medium Aevum, Oxford, volume 1, no. 3 (december 1932), pp. 183-196 and volume 3, no. 2 (june 1934), pp. 95-111.
  • 1934 Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale, in Transactions of the Philological Society, London, pp. 1-70 (rediscovery of dialect humour, introducing the Hengwrt manuscript into textual criticism of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales)
  • 1937 Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, London, Humphrey Milford, 56 pp. (lecture on Beowulf criticism)
  • 1939 The Reeve's Tale: version prepared for recitation at the 'summer diversions', Oxford, 14 pp.
  • 1939 On Fairy-Stories (Tolkien's philosophy on fantasy, given as the 1939 Andrew Lang lecture)
  • 1944 Sir Orfeo, Oxford, The Academic Copying Office, 18 pp. (an edition of the medieval poem)
  • 1947 On Fairy-Stories, published in Essays presented to Charles Williams, Oxford University Press (essay, very central for understanding Tolkien's views on fastasy)
  • 1953 Ofermod and Beorhtnoth's Death, essays published with the poem The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son in Essays and Studies by members of the English Association, volume 6.
  • 1953 Middle English "Losenger": Sketch of an etymological and semantic enquiry, published in Essais de philologie moderne: Communications présentées au Congrès International de Philologie Moderne (1951), Les Belles Lettres.
  • 1962 Ancrene Wisse: The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle, Early English Text Society, Oxford University Press.
  • 1963 English and Welsh, in Angles and Britons: O'Donnell Lectures, University of Cardiff Press.
  • 1966 Jerusalem Bible (contributing translator and lexicographer)

Posthumous publications

See Tolkien research for essays and text fragments by Tolkien published in academic publications and forums.

Audio recordings

  • 1967 Poems and Songs of Middle-Earth, Caedmon TC 1231
  • 1975 JRR Tolkien Reads and Sings his The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings, Caedmon TC 1477, TC 1478 (based on an August, 1952 recording by George Sayer)

Notes

  1. (Letters no. 165)
  2. (undergraduate John Jethro Rashbold, and "old Professor Rashbold at Pembroke"; Sauron Defeated, pg 151, Letters, 165)
  3. (Biography 1977, pg 22)
  4. (Biography 1977, pg 21)
  5. (Biography 1977, pg 24)
  6. (Biography 1977, pg 27)
  7. (Biography 1977, pg 113)
  8. (Biography 1977, pg 29)
  9. Doughan, David (2002). JRR Tolkien Biography. Life of Tolkien. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  10. (Letters, no. 306)
  11. (Biography 1977, pg 31)
  12. (Biography 1977, pg 39)
  13. Carpenter, Humphrey (1978). The Inklings. Allen & Unwin. 
  14. Doughan, David (2002). War, Lost Tales And Academia. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  15. (Biography 1977, pg 53-54)
  16. (Letters, no. 306)
  17. (Biography 1977, pg 67-69)
  18. (Biography 1977, pg 73)
  19. (Biography 1977, pg 86)
  20. (Biography 1977, pg 78)
  21. (Biography 1977, pg 85)
  22. (Biography 1977, pg 93)
  23. Cater, Bill (April 12, 2001). We talked of love, death, and fairy tales=HTML. UK Telegraph. Retrieved on 2006-03-13.
  24. among others, initiating the entries wasp and walrus; Tritel, Barbara (May 27, 1984). Language and Prehistory of the Elves. New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  25. (Biography 1977, pg 109, 114-115)
  26. See The Name Nodens (1932)
  27. (Biography 1977, pg 143)
  28. Ramey, Bill (March 30, 1998). The Unity of Beowulf: Tolkien and the Critics. Wisdom's Children. Retrieved on 2006-03-13.
  29. Kennedy, Michael (2001). Tolkien and Beowulf- Warriors of Middle-Earth. Amon Hen. Retrieved on 2006-03-13.
  30. (Letters no. 64, 131, etc.)
  31. (Letters, no. 327)
  32. Doughan, David (2002). JRR Tolkien Biography. Life of Tolkien. Retrieved on 2006-03-13.
  33. Meras, Phyllis (January 15, 1967). Go, Go, Gandalf. New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  34. (Letters, no. 336; Chu-Bu and Sheemish are idols in a 1912 story by Lord Dunsany)
  35. (Letters, no. 332)
  36. People of Stoke-on-Trent. Retrieved on 2005-03-13.
  37. Hammond, Wayne G. J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Biography, London: January 1993, Saint Pauls Biographies
  38. [[David Day|Day, David]] (February 1, 2002). Tolkien's Ring. New York: Barnes and Noble. ISBN 1-586-63527-1. 
  39. As described by Christopher Tolkien in Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks Konung (Oxford University, Trinity College). B. Litt. thesis. 1953/4. [Year uncertain], The Battle of the Goths and the Huns, in: Saga-Book (University College, London, for the Viking Society for Northern Research) 14, part 3 (1955-6) [1]
  40. Handwerk, Brian (March 1, 2004). Lord of the Rings Inspired by an Ancient Epic. National Geographic News. Retrieved on 2006-03-13.
  41. Gardner, John (October 23, 1977). The World of Tolkien. New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-03-13.
  42. Phillip, Norman (2005). The Prevalance of Hobbits. New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  43. Site Editor (2005). Leaf by Niggle - a symbolic story about a small painter. Leaf by Niggle. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  44. Times Editorial Staff (September 3, 1973). J.R.R. Tolkien Dead at 81: Wrote "The Lord of the Rings". New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  45. Times Editorial Staff (June 5, 1955). Oxford Calling. New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  46. Martinez, Michael (December 7th, 2004). Middle-Earth Revised, Again. Merp.com. Retrieved on 2006-03-13.
  47. Seiler, Andy (December 16, 2003). 'Rings' comes full circle. USA Today. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  48. Cooper, Callista (December 5, 2005). Epic trilogy tops favorite film poll. ABC News Online. Archived from the original on 2005-12-29. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  49. O'Hehir, Andrew (June 4, 2001). The book of the century. Salon.com. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  50. Diver, Krysia (October 5, 2004). A lord for Germany. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  51. Marquette University (2003-03-04). J.R.R. Tolkien Collection. Retrieved on 2007-04-16.
  52. McDowell, Edwin (September 4, 1983). Middle Earth Revisited. New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  53. (Letter dated 27 June 1925 to the Electors of the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford, Letters, no. 7)
  54. (Letters, no. 163)
  55. (Letters, no. 144, 25 April 1954, to Naomi Mitchison)
  56. (Letters, no. 180)
  57. (Letters, no. 131)
  58. Thygesen, Peter (Autumn, 1999). Queen Margrethe II: Denmark's monarch for a modern age. Scandinavian Review. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.
  59. (Letters, no. 107)
  60. (Letters, no. 144)
  61. (Letters, no. 207)
  62. (Letters, no. 13)
  63. Canby, Vincent (November 15, 1978). Film: 'The Lord of the Rings' From Ralph Bakshi. New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-03-12.

References

Further reading

A small selection of books about Tolkien and his works:

  • (2004) Anderson, Douglas A., Michael D. C. Drout and Verlyn Flieger: Tolkien Studies, Vol 1. 
  • (2003) Chance, Jane: Tolkien the Medievalist. London, New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28944-0. 
  • (2004) Chance, Jane: Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, a Reader. Louisville: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-813-12301-1. 
  • (2000) Flieger, Verlyn and Carl F. Hostetter: Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle Earth. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-30530-7. DDC 823.912. LC PR6039.. 
  • O'Neill, Timothy R. (1979). The Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien and the Archetypes of Middle-earth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-28208-X. 
  • Pearce, Joseph (1998). Tolkien: Man and Myth. London: Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN 000-274018-4. 
  • T. A. Shippey (2000). J. R. R. Tolkien — Author of the Century. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-12764-X, ISBN 0-618-25759-4 (pbk). 
  • Strachey, Barbara (1981). Journeys of Frodo: an Atlas of The Lord of the Rings. London, Boston: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-049-12016-6. 
  • Tolkien, John & Priscilla (1992). The Tolkien Family Album. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-26-110239-7. 
  • White, Michael (2003). Tolkien: A Biography. New American Library. ISBN 0451212428. 
  • Carpenter, Humphrey (1979). The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends. ISBN 0395276284. 
  • Curry, Patrick (2004). Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity. ISBN 061847885X. 
  • Duriez, Colin; David Porter (2001). The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of C.S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends. ISBN 1902694139. 
  • Bruner, Kurt D.; Jim Ware (2003). Finding God in the Lord of the Rings. ISBN 084238555X. 
  • Duriez, Colin (2003). Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. ISBN 1587680262. 

See also

External links

For story-internal references, see the links sections on Middle-earth and Lord of the Rings.

Biographical

Bibliographical

Databases/Directories

Societies

Derivative art (see also main article)

la:Iohannes Raginualdus Raguel Tolkien