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| J.R.R. Tolkien - Goodreads |
"The Hobbit" - "The Lord of The Rings" these two titles are more than likely familiar to everyone so I'm not going to write about the movies even though Peter Jackson - in my opinion anyway - did a wonderful job keeping true to the books. I'm also not going to talk about the books, even though - again in my opinion - they are so worth reading over and over, no I'd like to write about the creative man who wrote these wonderful books which gave Peter Jackson the material to make such entertaining movies. That man of course was J.R.R. Tolkien.
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| J.R.R. Tolkien - J.R.R. Tolkien Gallery |
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3rd 1892 in Bloemfontein South Africa to Arthur Reuel Tolkien - and English bank manager - and Mabel Tolkien, he had one younger brother Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien. Tolkien's father passed away in 1895 while he, his mother and brother were in Kings Heath Birmingham England visiting family, they remained there until moving to Green Hall also in Birmingham in 1896.
Now the interesting thing about his living in this particular area are the places he liked to explore which would later inspire scenes in his books one place in particular is his aunts farm which just happen to be named "Bag End" - sound familiar
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| "The Hall at Bag-End, J.R.R. Tolkien Gallery |
Tolkien was considered very bright as a young child - he and his brother were home schooled by their mother - in fact by age four he could read and write quite fluently. He developed an interest in botany and enjoyed drawing pictures of landscapes and trees. However his real interest consisted of two things, languages and reading books. Another interesting fact is that although he enjoyed reading all types of books his favorites were the "Fairy Books" written by Andrew Lang and the influence of these stories can certainly be felt in his writings.
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| Tolkien & Family |
On the 22nd of March 1916 Tolkien married Edith Bratt they had four children - John, Michael, Christopher and Priscilla. Starting when oldest son John was three Tolkien began writing a letter each Christmas to his children about the travels and adventures of Father Christmas - adding new characters each year - the letters were delivered in an envelope which included a North Pole stamp along with postage marks that were designed by Tolkien.
In 1920 he was given the post of Reader - an appointment for a senior academic with a distinguished international reputation in research or scholarship - in English Language at the University of Leeds making him the youngest professor there. Beginning in 1925 Tolkien excepted a position at Oxford as Professor of Anglo-Saxon Language with a fellowship at Pembroke Collage Oxford, where he remained until his retirement in 1959.
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| Pembroke Collage - University of Oxford |
It was during his time at Pembroke that the Hobbit came to be, according to Tolkien while marking examination papers he found that one student had left one of the answer pages blank and for reasons he's not sure of he wrote "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit". This then turned into stories he told his children about a funny little creature named Bilbo Baggins who found a magic ring that made its wearer invisible. These stories of course became "The Hobbit" which was published in 1937.
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| An Inscribed First Edition Copy of The Hobbit |
What's interesting about the Hobbit is the fact that Tolkien never expected it to turn into a popular book, he originally wrote these stories for his children however as fate sometimes does it came to the attention of an employee of the London publishing firm George Allen & Unwin who persuaded him to submit it for publication. Due to the immense popularity of the book - not only with children but also with adult readers - the publishers asked Tolkien to write a sequel.
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| Lord of The Rings Trilogy - J.R.R. Tolkien |
This of course brings us to "The Lord of the Rings" which took Tolkien ten years to write and was published in three volumes - "The Fellowship of the Ring", "The Twin Towers" and " The Return of the King". It's interesting to note that Tolkien intended this sequel to be a children's book similar to the style of "The Hobbit" however the story took on a more serious darker edge and became popular to adult readers. So popular in fact that it's ranked as one of the most popular works of fiction in the 20th century, this fact comes from both sales and reader surveys.
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| Drawing of Rivendell - J.R.R. Tolkien |
As I said in the beginning of this post I'm sure that many have seen the wonderful movies - possibly multiple times - and many have read and reread the books but if by some chance you haven't read them I strongly encourage you to do so, they are well worth the time.
However one thing to remember is that this wonderful fantasy world came together all because a devoted loving father enjoyed telling stories to his children.
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