John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
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J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings sold over 100 million copies by 2004, making it the best-selling fiction book. Born in 1892 in Bloemfontein, he published The Hobbit in 1937. A philologist and Oxford professor, he invented 14 languages and died in 1973 at age 81.
Names, aliases, and relatives of J.R.R. Tolkien — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
J.R.R. Tolkien by the numbers — life, work, and family.
J.R.R. Tolkien — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Tolkien’s father died in 1896, and his mother Mabel Suffield moved him and his brother Hilary to Sarehole, near Birmingham, England. The landscape of the Midlands and Nordic mythology fueled his imagination, inspiring the Shire and hobbits. After his mother died in 1904, he was raised by Father Francis Xavier Morgan, a Catholic priest, and educated at King Edward VI School and later Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied linguistics.
Tolkien began writing The Hobbit as a bedtime story in the early 1930s; it was published in 1937. He then spent 14 years on The Lord of the Rings, published in three volumes from 1954 to 1955. At Oxford, he held the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon 1925–1945 and the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature 1945–1959. He also contributed to the Oxford English Dictionary and published scholarly works on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Beowulf.
Tolkien married Edith Bratt on March 22, 1916, and they had four children: John, Michael, Christopher, and Priscilla. He and Edith are buried together in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford, with their headstone inscribed with the names Beren and Lúthien from The Silmarillion. A notoriously poor driver, he eventually relied on his bicycle after his wife refused to ride with him.
In 1999, 250,000 Amazon.com customers voted The Lord of the Rings the book of the millennium. Musicians Blind Guardian and Marillion drew inspiration from his works. He received the CBE in 1972. He created Middle-earth and the epic tales of hobbits, elves, and wizards.
Browse the complete filmography of J.R.R. Tolkien — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
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Every award, honor, and recognition received by J.R.R. Tolkien — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
J.R.R. Tolkien's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
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A wall of memorable lines from J.R.R. Tolkien — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
‘The Lord of the Rings’ Is of Course a Fundamentally Religious and Catholic Work; Unconsciously so at First, but Consciously in the Revision. That Is Why I Have Not Put In, or Have Cut Out Practically All References to Anything Like ‘Religion,’ to Cults or Practices, in the Imaginary World. for the Religious Element Is Absorbed into the Story and Symbolism.
It’s a Job That’s Never Started That Takes the Longest to Finish.
I Cordially Dislike Allegory in All Its Manifestations, and Always Have Done Since I Grew Old and Wary Enough to Detect Its Presence.
…The Hobbits Are Just Rustic English People, Made Small in Size Because It Reflects the Generally Small Reach of Their Imagination Not the Small Reach of Their Courage or Latent Power.
I Am in Fact a Hobbit in All but Size. I Like Gardens, Trees, and Unmechanized Farmlands; I Smoke a Pipe, and Like Good Plain Food…and Even Dare to Wear in These Dull Days, Ornamental Waistcoats…
If More of Us Valued Food and Cheer and Song Above Hoarded Gold, It Would Be a Merrier World.
Little by Little, One Travels Far.
The Hobbits Are Just Rustic English People, Made Small in Size Because It Reflects the Generally Small Reach of Their Imagination.
I Do Not Love the Bright Sword for It’s Sharpness, nor the Arrow for It’s Swiftness, nor the Warrior for His Glory. I Love Only That Which They Defend.
The Wise Speak Only of What They Know.
A Single Dream Is Worth More Than a Thousand Realities.
There Is One Criticism of the Lord of the Rings I Keep Hearing, That I Agree With, That It Is Too Short.
He Who Breaks a Thing to Find Out What It Is Has Left the Path of Wisdom.
In My Story I Do Not Deal in Absolute Evil. I Do Not Think There Is Such a Thing, Since That Is Zero. I Do Not Think That at Any Rate Any ‘Rational Being’ Is Wholly Evil.
In August 1945: the News Today About ‘Atomic Bombs’ Is so Horrifying One Is Stunned. the Utter Folly of These Lunatic Physicists to Consent to Do Such Work for War Purposes: Calmly Plotting the Destruction of the World! Such Explosives in Men’s Hands, While Their Moral and Intellectual Status Is Declining, Is About as Useful as Giving Out Firearms to All Inmates of a Gaol and Then Saying That You Hope ‘This Will Ensure Peace’.
There Was a Willow Hanging Over the Mill Pool and I Learned to Climb It. It Belonged to a Butcher on the Stratford Road, I Think. One Day They Cut It Down. They Didn’t Do Anything with It: the Log Just Lay There. I Never Forgot That.
Well, We’re in God’s Hands. but He Does Not Look Kindly on Babel Builders.
In 1957: I Should Say, If Asked, the Tale Is Not Really About Power and Dominion: That Only Sets the Wheels Going; It Is About Death and the Desire for Deathlessness. Which Is Hardly More Than to Say It Is a Tale Written by a Man!
The Lord of the Rings / Is One of Those Things: / If You Like It You Do / If You Don’t, Then You Boo!
On the Death of C.S. Lewis in 1963: so Far I Have Felt the Normal Feelings of a Man of My Age Like an Old Tree That Is Losing All Its Leaves One by One: This Feels Like an Axe Blow near the Roots.
It Is Impossible for an Author Still Writing to Be Fair to Another Author Working Along the Same Lines. at Least I Find It So. in Fact I Dislike Dune with Some Intensity, and in That Unfortunate Case It Is Much the Best and Fairest to Another Author to Keep Silent and Refuse to Comment.
I Desired Dragons with a Profound Desire. of Course, I in My Timid Body Did Not Wish to Have Them in the Neighbourhood, Intruding into My Relatively Safe World, in Which It Was, for Instance, Possible to Read Stories in Peace of Mind, Free from Fear. but the World That Contained Even the Imagination of Fáfnir Was Richer and More Beautiful, at Whatever Cost of Peril.
A Story Must Be Told or There’ll Be No Story, yet It Is the Untold Stories That Are Most Moving.
Every Morning I Wake up and Think: Good, Another 24 Hours’ Pipe Smoking.
The Mind That Thought of Light, Heavy, Grey, Yellow, Still, Swift Also Conceived of Magic That Would Make Heavy Things Light and Able to Fly, Turn Grey Lead into Yellow Gold, and the Still Rock into a Swift Water. If It Could Do the One, It Could Do the Other; It Inevitably Did Both. When We Can Take Green from Grass, Blue from Heaven, and Red from Blood, We Have Already an Enchanter’s Power.
It Gives Me Great Pleasure, a Good Name. I Always in Writing Start with a Name. Give Me a Name and It Produces a Story, Not the Other Way About Normally.
The Greater Part of the Truth Is Always Hidden, in Regions Out of the Reach of Cynicism.
Most People Have Made This Mistake of Thinking Middle Earth Is a Particular Kind of Earth or Is Another Planet of the Science Fiction Sort, but It’s Simply an Old Fashioned Word for This World We Live In, as Imagined Surrounded by the Ocean.
The Significance of a Myth Is Not Easily to Be Pinned on Paper by Analytical Reasoning. It Is at Its Best When It Is Presented by a Poet Who Feels Rather Than Makes Explicit What His Theme Portends; Who Presents It Incarnate in the World of History and Geography, as Our Poet Has Done.
I Have Claimed That Escape Is One of the Main Functions of Fairy Stories, and Since I Do Not Disapprove of Them, It Is Plain That I Do Not Accept the Tone of Scorn or Pity with Which ‘Escape’ Is Now so Often Used. Why Should a Man Be Scorned If, Finding Himself in Prison, He Tries to Get Out and Go Home? or If He Cannot Do So, He Thinks and Talks About Other Topics Than Jailers and Prison Walls? the World Outside Has Not Become Less Real Because the Prisoner Cannot See It.
‘Power’ Is an Ominous and Sinister Word in All These Tales, Except as Applied to the Gods.
The Unpayable Debt That I Owe to C.S. Lewis Was Not Influence as It Is Ordinarily Understood, but Sheer Encouragement. He Was for Long My Only Audience. Only from Him Did I Ever Get the Idea That My Stuff Could Be More Than a Private Hobby. but for His Interest and Unceasing Eagerness for More I Should Never Have Brought the Lord of the Rings to a Conclusion.
I Wish Life Was Not so Short.
Little-known facts about J.R.R. Tolkien — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
His mother introduced him to Latin, French, and German. While at school mostly at Oxford he was taught or taught himself Greek, Middle English, Old English also called Anglo Saxon, Old Norse also called Old Icelandic, Gothic, Modern and medieval Welsh, Finnish, Spanish, and Italian. Other languages of which he had a working knowledge include Serbian, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, and Lombardic. In addition to these languages, he invented 14 different languages and assorted alphabets for his Middle-earth dwellers.
The only actor from Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of Lord of the Rings to have actually met J.R.R. Tolkien is Christopher Lee. Lee was very fond of Tolkien’s books and Tolkien himself even said that Lee would have been a good choice for the role of the wizard Saruman.
He was extremely annoyed when The Lord of the Rings was published in the mid-50s as three different stories, because he had never intended the tale to become a trilogy.
He said in an interview that the character Faramir was the Lord of the Ring character who was the most like himself.
While writing the Lord of the Rings, he originally intended for Aragorn to marry Éowyn, but later decided to have her marry Faramir and created the Arwen character for Aragorn.
In The Lord of the Rings, the wizard Gandalf is revealed to have an Elvish name, Mithrandir. This is an indirect reference to the story’s Christian underpinnings. The name Mithrandir is derived from Mithras, a Pagan god with several parallels to stories of the life of Jesus: he was born on December 25 as the offspring of the Sun, had a Last Supper with his twelve followers, died, was buried under a rock, and reborn. Gandalf, like Mithras and Jesus, dies and is reborn. Mithras sacrificed a cosmic bull, symbolizing darkness, while Gandalf falls fighting the Balrog. According to the book, the Fellowship that Gandalf leads sets out on December 25.
Tolkien and his wife, Edith, are buried together in a single grave in the Catholic section of Wolvercote cemetery in the northern suburbs of Oxford. The grave is well signposted from the entrance. The legend on the headstone reads: Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889-1971 and John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892-1973. The character names are those of lovers in his novel, The Silmarillion.
He was one of the translators for The Jerusalem Bible.
In 1999, 250,000 Amazon.com customers voted his The Lord of the Rings first published 1954 as the book of the millenium.
His reaction to several proposed film productions of his books was that he considered his works to be unstageable; he simply didn’t feel that they could be successfully translated to a dramatic form. Although he had sold the film rights long before he died, he had no real expectation that The Lord of the Rings could be successfully filmed.
Shortly after the original publication of The Hobbit in 1937, his publisher, Allen & Unwin, tried to license several foreign language versions, including a German version. Before any German publishers would publish it, the Reich government wrote him a letter asking whether or not he was Aryan. He responded by saying that I can only assume that you are asking if I am Jewish. I regret to respond that I have no ancestors among that gifted people. He added that although he did have German ancestry, the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride. On account of this backhanded reply, The Hobbit was not published in Germany until after 1945.
The Inklings Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams & Owen Barfield met on Tuesdays for lunch at the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford where they would read out pages from their books.
Colleagues urged him to submit his elvish alphabet for consideration to win a prize established by George Bernard Shaw for the creation of a phonetically consistent alphabet for English. He declined to do so, another example of his reluctance to exploit his creation.
Derived his two main Elvish languages from a fictional root language. High Elvish or Quenya was derived from the root using the principles of Finnish phonology and grammar, while Low Elvish or Sindarin was derived using the principles of Welsh phonology and grammar.
His father died when he was 4, and his mother when he was 12. He and his brothers were then raised by a Catholic priest.
He based many of the locations in the Lord of The Rings on areas around Birmingham during his childhood. For instance, the structure of Isengard was based on the University of Birmingham, the two towers were based on Edgbaston Waterworks tower and Perrott’s Folly, and the Shire was inspired by Sarehole, a small hamlet just outside of Birmingham.
A friend and fellow Oxford don with C.S. Lewis. They were both members of the Inklings.
The character of Gollum from his epic Lord of the Rings trilogy is ranked #10 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
Once met Ava Gardner and neither knew why the other was famous.
He was in the British Army during World War I. He enlisted as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers later in the same year. He was in France during the Somme Offensive, July 1916. He wrote about going out into no man’s land and finding the corpse’s of earlier dead.
The Lord of the Ring-saga’s world and its cast of characters have roots in real-world history and geography, from the world wars that dominated his lifetime to the ancient language and legends of Finland. The Finnish national epic Kalevala inspired him and he taught himself the Finnish language so he could read it.
Studied Old Norse and Old English at Oxford.
Made up languages as a young child.
By 2004 his The Lord of the Rings trilogy 1954-1955 had sold more than 100 million copies and is the best selling fiction book of all time. It is the 3rd best selling book of all time after The Bible c. 1451-1455 more than 6 billion copies and Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung 1966 900 million copies.
He based the description of Mordor, home to the evil lord Sauron, on the Black Country, a section of Birmingham which was heavily polluted by iron foundries, coal mines and steel mills due to the Industrial Revolution. The air in it was so dense with smog and dust it was difficult to breathe.
Many of his papers, including original manuscripts and illustrations for The Hobbit 1937, Farmer Giles of Ham 1949, and The Lord of the Rings 1954-1955, were sold to the Raynor Memorial Libraries of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA. The library approached him, he selected Marquette because he wanted his papers to be kept by a Catholic institution which would be willing to provide for proper care and preservation of the materials. The library periodically puts selected items from the collection on public display. His other papers are at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University.
Served in the Lancashire Fusilliers in the First World War and fought in the Battle of the Somme. He was discharged in 1917 suffering from trench fever.
He was a philologist – someone who studies the history of languages.
Once said that the words cellar door were the most beautiful phrase he had heard. Though he is not identified as the person who said this, and director Richard Kelly mistakenly gives credit to Edgar Allan Poe in his DVD commentary, his fondness for the phrase is referenced by Drew Barrymore in the film Donny Darko 2001.
Widely considered as the founder of modern fantasy; the man who changed children’s faerie tales into epic adventures without losing the appeal.
Prior to their reunion inside the city of Minas Tirith, his characters Aragorn and Eowyn only have one conversation during the course of The Lord of the Rings, and it takes place shortly before Aragorn takes the Paths of the Dead in The Return of the King. Peter Jackson’s film adaptation adds several more scenes between them, beginning in The Two Towers. Although all of these interactions were invented for the movie, all but three of them use dialogue from their one scene together in the book.
The original publication of The Lord of the Rings was delayed for two reasons. He tried to get out of his obligation to his publisher, Allen & Unwin, because another publisher had agreed to his wish to use different colors of ink for different parts of the book. In particular, he wanted the writing on the Ring to be printed in red ink. That deal fell apart, and he went back to Allen & Unwin. The second reason was that he wanted The Silmarillion; which told the history of the Elves and of Aragorn’s race, the Numenoreans; to be published alongside Rings. No publisher would agree to this, so The Silmarillion was not published until after his death.
He started writing The Lord of the Rings with no idea where the story would eventually go. This led to it not being structured at all like a proper novel, with many characters left underdeveloped, many ideas repeated, and character groups being essentially forgotten for very long periods.
Father of Christopher Tolkien, Michael Tolkien, Priscilla Tolkien, and John Tolkien.
He was a very poor driver to the point that his wife refused to get into a car with him. He eventually stopped driving entirely and relied on his bicycle.
During the flower-power sixties Leonard Nimoy recorded The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.
The German Heavy Metal band Blind Guardian base a lot of their songs on his work, such as Nightfall in Middle-Earth which is based on the Silmarillion, and other songs: Gandalf’s Rebirth, Lord of the Rings, By the gates of Moria, etc.
He was awarded the CBE Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1972 Queen’s New Year Honours List for his services to literature.
Much of his work was published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien.
The appendices to The Return of the King features The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, in which Aragorn’s relationship with Arwen is given in detail, as well as his relationships with Elrond and his mother, Gilraen. His mother’s final words to him are Onen i-Estel Edain, u-chebin estel anim, which means I have given Hope to the Dunedain, I have kept no hope for myself. This line is used in the film as the last verbal exchange between Aragorn and Elrond. In addition, Estel, or Hope, was a name by which Aragorn was known before his true heritage was revealed to him.
Taught at the University of Leeds before teaching at Oxford from 1925 to 1959.
The first music inspired by his work was written by the English songwriting team of Donald Swann and Michael Flanders, who set poems from The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and other works to music and included them in their 1963 revue At the Drop of a Hat. When an interviewer called Swann elfin, he said, Yes, and in the show, I sing in Elvish! In 1970, Swedish keyboardist Bo Hansson recorded Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings, becoming the first in a series of pop artists to do so for the rock-oriented market.
One change that he vehemently opposed in any adaptation of his work was the intercutting of the various story threads that he had deliberately kept separate. To date, every adaptation has intercut the stories.
The lead characters in his best known works, Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit, and Frodo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings, have both been played by Orson Bean and Ian Holm.
Member of the Oxford literary circle along with writers C.S. Lewis, Jeremy Dyson, Charles Williams, Messrs Coghill, and Owen Barfield.
The British rock band Marillion, popular in the UK and Europe during the 1980s, took their name from his posthumously published collection The Silmarillion. According to the band’s original drummer, Mick Pointer: Doug Doug Irvine, the original bass player was reading Silmarillion at the time and I suggested that it would be a great name for the band.
Won the International Fantasy Award in 1957 for his book The Lord of the Rings. In 1973 he won the first Gandalf Award named after a character from his books as Grandmaster lifetime fantasy achievement. Posthumously he has been awarded the Locus Award in 1978 for The Silmarillion and the Mythopoeic Award in 1981 for Unfinished Tales. The Balrog Award is also named after a character from his books.
He opposed the development of the Concorde supersonic jetliner.
Locus magazine conducted a poll in 1987 from among its readers to vote for the Best All-time Fantasy Novel. His The Lord of the Rings 1955 and The Hobbit 1934 won 1st and 2nd place respectively. They beat out classics like Alice in Wonderland 1865, Dracula 1897, and The Wizard of Oz 1900.
Great-grandfather of actor Royd Tolkien.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about J.R.R. Tolkien.
Celebrities similar to J.R.R. Tolkien — same craft, ranked by reach.
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