Who Is J.R.R. Tolkien?

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was a literary scholar in the English language. He was a professor at the University of Oxford and is most famous for his writings, The Hobbit, and The Lord of The Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien was born in South Africa on January 3, 1892. He has little recollection of his childhood in South Africa but recalls an encounter with a large hairy spider. This was influenced in later writings and most likely the inspiration for the giant spiders Bilbo Baggins encounters in The Hobbit. John's father died on February 15, 1896, and from there, his mother, his brother, and himself moved back to England in the West Midlands. There, Tolkien experienced his life in the rural hamlet of Sarehole, and the dark urban area of Birmingham. The family mainly lived in a state of poverty,

and matters became only worse when his mother died of diabetes in the pre-insulin days. His mother died on November 14, 1904, which left John and his brother Hilary orphaned. From there, the boys were taken care of financially, as well as "spiritually" by a man named Father Francis. In the meantime, they were boarding with their Aunt Beatrice Suffield and then with a woman named Mrs. Faulkner. Another lodger in Mrs. Faulkner's boarding house was a woman named Edith Bratt. Edith and John grew as friends, and eventually the relationship deepened to where they were dating on an off. Tolkien was in no rush to join the army but eventually enlisted as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers.When news came that he had to leave for France, he married Edith on March 22, 1916. After being inflicted with a typhus-like disease, Tolkien returned home and went on to have two children within the years to come. In the town of Leeds, Michael Hilary Reuel was born in October 1920, and Christopher Reuel in 1924. Finally, he has his last child, a daughter named Priscilla in 1929. Tolkien returned to teaching at the University of Oxford and was also well-known for his children's stories which manifested into more as time went on. One day while grading exam papers, a student left a page blank, to where Tolkien wrote "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." Tolkien had no idea what he meant by a "hobbit" or what hole it lived in or why it lived there. Eventually, he submitted a transcript to a publishing company which requested he finished the piece first. Afterwards, The Hobbit was published in 1937 and has been on children's recommended reading lists ever since. He went on to attempt a sequel to The Hobbit with what's known today as The Silmarillion. The reader's reaction was mixed of both love and hate for the poetry and praise contained in his story. It was rejected and Tolkien decided he wanted to create "The New Hobbit", which later became the trilogy known as The Lord of The Rings. After his retirement, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and his wife Edith moved to Bournemouth. On November 22, 1971, Edith died and shortly after Ronald on September 2, 1973. The two are buried together in a single grave and to this day, his son Christopher carries out his legacy and continues to fuel the never-ending fire of the society his father created.