J.R.R. Tolkien was born in what is now South Africa on January 3, 1892. His mother took her two young sons to visit her family in England when Tolkien was three, and his father died while they were gone. She tutored her sons, and Tolkien could read by the time he was four and write easily a year later. She converted to Catholicism in 1900 and died in 1904, leaving Tolkien, then 12, and his younger brother to the guardianship of Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan, asking that they be raised as Catholics.

In the fall of 1911, Tolkien began to study at Exeter College, Oxford. He first read Classics, and then switched to English Language. He graduated in 1915 with specializations in Old Norse and Ancient Greek philology.

He married Edith, to whom he had become engaged in 1913, on March 22, 1916, and she converted to Catholicism. The couple later had four children.

Tolkien volunteered for military duty and was sent to France in June, 1916. He fought in the Battle of the Somme, caught trench fever, and was invalided home in November. Many of his closest friends died in World War I.

� Tolkien Society�s biography.

� Tolkien Library�s biography.

� A brief biography.

Tolkien at Oxford

After the War ended, Tolkien worked for the Oxford English Dictionary, mostly on entries for words beginning in W. He went to the University of Leeds in 1920 as a Reader and became a professor there in 1924. His scholarly career advanced, as well as his teaching career. He produced an edition (with E.V. Gordon) of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that remained the definitive scholarly edition for over half a century. He also translated Pearl and Sir Orfeo and wrote A Middle English Vocabulary.

In 1925, Tolkien became a fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon. He spent the rest of his professional life at Oxford, moving the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature in 1945 and retiring in 1959. His 1936 lecture, "Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics," was a seminal influence in Beowulf studies. He also helped with a new translation of the Bible, which was published as the Jerusalem Bible in 1966.

Tolkien and the Inklings

During his years at Oxford, Tolkien was a member of the Inklings, an extremely informal group of writers and scholars who met weekly from the early 1930s to 1949. Other prominent members were C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams. Members were interested in literature, the narrative form, and fantasy, among other things. Several of them read their works in progress at the meetings; Tolkien�s Lord of the Rings was one of the first.

� The Inklings: information about this influential group

Publications

Tolkien�s interest in languages had led him to develop some artificial languages of his own. Since he believed firmly that a language could not really exist without its accompanying mythology, he began developing notes on histories and myths.

This led to The Hobbit, published in 1937 by George Allen & Unwin. It was more or less intended for children, but drew adult readers from the first. He began to work on Lord of the Rings almost at once, and continued developing it through World War II. It was published as three separate books after the war.

The richness and depth of the world depicted in Lord of the Rings rested on the languages and mythologies Tolkien had been creating for decades. His son Christopher, who is his literary executor, published some of them as The Silmarillion, and others are still being prepared for publication.

Tolkien also wrote a number of brief fantasies, originally for his children. Several of these have been published.

� Complete listing of Tolkien�s writings.

� Tolkien�s working manuscripts of The Hobbit (1937), Farmer Giles of Ham (1949), and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), as well as the original copy of the children's book Mr. Bliss, are held at Marquette University.

� Tolkien�s other manuscripts, his personal papers, and his scholarly papers are held at the Bodlien Library, Oxford.

� Publications in the U.S.

Popularity

Lord of the Rings became enormously popular world-wide in the 1960s, and remains so in the 21st century, partly because of the films based on it.

Queen Elizabeth II made Tolkien a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1972.

� Admirers of Tolkien�s work have founded the Tolkien Society, which has members from all over the world.

� The Tolkien Estate maintains a website for further developments in Tolkien�s work.

� Tolkien Studies is a scholarly journal dedicated to his work.

� The New York Times has a special archive dedicated to Tolkien�s work.

Death

Edith Tolkien died on November 29, 1972, and Tolkien had the name �L�thien� engraved on her tombstone. He died on September 2, 1973, at the age of 81. According to his wishes, he was buried in the same grave, and the name �Beren� was added to the stone.