J. R. R Tolkien

Oxford professor? War veteran? Or just the finest author of the greatest works of fiction in history? You decide!

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, creator of Middle-Earth and author of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion was born in the town of Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State, where his father, Arthur, had moved to take up a senior position with a bank. In early 1895 his mother, Mabel, returned to England with Ronald and his younger brother, Hilary, exhausted by the climate. After Arthur's death from rheumatic fever, the family made their home at Sarehole, near Birmingham. This beautiful rural area made a great impression on the young Ronald, and its effect can be seen in his later writings and his pictures.

Mabel died in 1904, leaving the boys to the care of Father Francis Morgan, a priest at the Birmingham Oratory. At King Edward's School, Ronald was thought Classics, Anglo-Saxon and Middle-English. He had great linguistic talent, and after studying old Welsh and Finnish, he started to invent his own "Elvish" languages.

1914 saw the outbreak of the First World War. Ronald was in his final year at Exeter College, Oxford: he graduated the following year with a First in English Language and Literature and at once took up his commission as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. Before embarking for France in June 1916, he married his childhood sweetheart Edith Bratt. Tolkien survived the Battle of the Somme, where two of his three closest friends were killed, but later that year he was struck down by trench fever and invalided back to England.

The years after the Great War were devoted to his work as an academic: as Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, where he was soon to prove himself one of the finest philologists in the world. He had already started to write a great cycle of the myths and legends of Middle-Earth which was to become The Silmarillion. He and Edith had four children and it was for them that first told the tale of The Hobbit, published in 1937 by Sir Stanley Unwin. The Hobbit proved to be so successful that Sir Stanley was soon asking for a sequel: but it was not until 1954, when Tolkien was approaching retirement, that he the first volume of his great masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, was published, and its terrific success took him by surprise.

After retirement Ronald and Edith moved to Bournemouth but when Edith died in 1971, Ronald returned to Oxford. He died after a brief illness on 2nd September 1973, leaving his great mythological work, The Silmarillion, to be edited for publication by his son, Christopher.

On to the books. Some of these are edited by his son Christoffer Tolkien.

The Hobbit or There and Back Again (1937): 
A childrens story about the hobbit Bilbo Baggins that is pulled into a great adventure by 13 dwarves and the wizard Gandalf to fight the dragon Smaug, along the way they enconter many dangers, amongst them orcs, giant spiders, wolves and hostile elves but by using magic, courage and a little luck they reaches the lonely mountain. But the real trouble is when they are confronted with an ancient dragon which isn't too found of dwarves wanting to steal his treasure (which he in the past had stolen from them).

The Fellowship of the Ring (19??): The first volume of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The Two Towers (19??): The second volume of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The Return of the King (1949): The third volume of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (1949): 
In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth still it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell, by chance, into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. From his fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, Sauron's power spread far and wide. He gathered all the Great Rings to him, but ever he searched far and wide for the One Ring that would complete his dominion. On his eleventy-first birthday, Bilbo disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin, Frodo, the Ruling Ring, and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.
The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the wizard, Merry, Pippin and Sam, Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, Boromir of Gondor, and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.


The Silmarillion (19??): Edited by Christoffer Tolkien, Published Posthumously 
"The tales of the First Age when Morgoth dwelt in Middle-earth and the elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils to which are appended the Downfall of Númenor and the history of the Rings of Power and the Third Age in which these tales come to their end."

Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth (1980): Edited by Christoffer Tolkien, Published Posthumously 
Is a collection of narratives from The Elder Days until the days of the War of the Ring that contain such various elements as the complete knowledge of the five wizards and the Palantíri, and the legend of Amroth or the emergence of Ulmo the sea-god in front of Tuor on the coast of Beleriand. It also contains an exact description of the military organisation of the riders of Rohan as well as several reproduced maps of Middle-earth.

Leaf by Niggle

On Fairy Stories

The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

The Road Goes Ever On

Farmer Giles of Ham

The Father Christmas Letters- Published Posthumously

Sir Gawain, Pearl and Sir Orfeo- Published Posthumously

Pictures by J.R.R Tolkien- Published Posthumously

The Letters of J.R.R Tolkien- Published Posthumously

The Monsters and the Critics and other Essays- Published Posthumously

Finn and Hengest- Published Posthumously


The History of Middle-Earth, material collected and edited by Christoffer Tolkien:
I The Book of Lost Tales Part 1
II The Book of Lost Tales Part 2
III The Lays of Beleriand
IV The Shaping of Middle-earth
V The Lost Road and Other Writings
VI The Return of the Shadow
VII The Treason of Isengard
VIII The War of the Ring
IX Sauron Deafeated

With thanks to Harper Collins.

Please feel free to E-mail me. Its always welcome and appreciated.

A. S. Fisher. 2001