John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Africa, in a country with bright name- The Orange Republic, in the city of Bloemfontein, in 1892. Three years later, Ronald's mother (he was always called by his middle name) Mabel moved the children to England, where she soon received news of her husband's death. Alone with two children, she settled near Birmingham, in countryside, next to the road leading to Shakespeare's homeland - in Stratford-upon-Avon. Early childhood the writer passed among the green hills and plains, and this, of course, could not but affect the formation of his personality
Later a short time Mabel converted to Catholicism and transferred her children to it, which had a bad effect on her relations with relatives who professed Anglicanism. Despite the difficult financial position Mabel was determined to give the children good liberal education. She herself taught Ronald Latin, French, German and Greek, as well as drawing and botany. Languages, as well as painting, were given to Ronald unusually easily, and when the boy was seven years old, she sent him to school. There he began to show simply fantastic successes. During the years spent at school, Ronald learned Anglo-Saxon, then medieval English, Gothic, Spanish, Old Norse, Finnish. He originally read "Beowulf", medieval English poems, the Finnish epic "Kalevala", led school discussions in Gothic. Dead languages were the main interest of the young Tolkien. Together with them he studied ancient mythology, epics and legends that captured his imagination. He did not just learn languages - he thought them up, inventing expressions that could be used in colloquial speech the people who spoke them. At the same time, Ronald, using the grammar of ancient languages, began to invent his own languages and write poetry in them.
In 1904, a tragedy occurred - Mabel died of diabetes. Mabel's confessor, Father Francis Morgan, took care of Ronald and his brother. Tolkien decided to devote himself to a church career, but soon changed his mind and fell in love instead, also with an orphan. The girl's name was Edith Brett, and she was three years older than Ronald, who had just turned sixteen. The age difference did not prevent him from establishing close relations with the girl (in terms Victorian era) relationship. Having learned about Ronald's hobby, Father Morgan forbids Ronald to see her until the age of majority, that is, until the age of 21. Ronald stops dating Edith, but sublimation is only good for him - he and three of his friends create the "Tea Club", the first club in his life. In the future, he constantly organized groups of like-minded people around him, with whom he could discuss his work and creativity. In 1911, Ronald entered Oxford, where at first he studied carelessly, since the knowledge accumulated by that time was more than enough. Soon, however, he became seriously interested in learning new languages for him - they were the languages of the Germanic group, Old Norse and Welsh, he also studied hieroglyphs ancient egypt. In 1913, Tolkien becomes an adult - he turns 21 years old. In the three years that he did not see Edith, his feelings did not cool down, but even got stronger. On the night of his coming of age, he writes to his beloved. Soon their engagement took place (Edith, as it turned out, was engaged to another by this time, but she canceled the first engagement for the sake of Ronald). The year 1914 is coming, and with it the war in Europe. Tolkien enters the courses of communications officers, while continuing to study. At the same time he wrote the poem "Journey of Eärendil - the Evening Star". The poem about the voyage of a sailor-star through the heavens was the first stone that formed the basis of Tolkien's new magical world.
In 1916, having passed all the exams, he finally marries his first and only chosen one and goes to the front, to France. In bloody battles, his friends die, including two of the four founders of the Tea Club. In the trenches, he catches "trench fever" (as typhus was then called). Rushing about in the heat, Ronald speaks in an incomprehensible language to those around him. The disease cannot be overcome in any way, relapses constantly occur. Tolkien was never able to return to the front, but he got enough time to work on the language, which became his obsession. It was elvish. Speakers of the Elvish language were bound to follow... Tolkien writes The Book of Lost Tales, a book that he will write and rewrite all his life, and which will be published by his son years after the death of the writer under the name "The Silmarillion".
After the end of the war, Tolkien and his family moved to Oxford and found work as a compiler for the new Oxford Dictionary. in English. He is working on the letter W. I must say that there are not many words for this letter in the English language (and, accordingly, in the Oxford dictionary on my shelf). Nevertheless, there are words for this letter such as "world" and "word", as well as the famous "four Ws" that define the coordinate system of our world: "who", "what", "when" and "where". Soon he becomes a teacher at Oxford. From 1925 until his death, Tolkien lived and worked in his alma mater. In Oxford, Ronald, together with his friend Clive Lewis, organized the "Inklings" club, in which Tolkien and Lewis read their unpublished works. The members of this circle were destined to be the first to hear from the lips of the author of a chapter from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In 1937, the book "The Hobbit" was published, written by Tolkien based on a story written for his children (by this time there were already four of them - 3 sons and a daughter). The book is a success, and the author is ordered to continue. But the creation of the world is a matter that is harmed by haste. In addition, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien lectures - and there is very little time left for a book. He writes slowly at night. The creation of the epic "Lord of the Rings" took Tolkien 17 years. The first two volumes of the trilogy were published in 1954, last volume- in 1955. From that moment on, the world of Middle-earth acquired an independent force and began to live according to its own laws. Tolkien died in Oxford in 1973, two years after the death of his wife. At the end of his life, he managed to catch fame and respect, but the real boom around his work began a few years after the death of the writer
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, also known as Tolkien (eng. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien; January 3, 1892 - September 2, 1973) - English writer, linguist, philologist, best known as the author of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Tolkien was Oxford Professor of Anglo-Saxon (1925–1945), English Language and Literature (1945–1959). An orthodox Catholic, along with close friend C. S. Lewis, he was a member of the Inklings literary society. On March 28, 1972, Tolkien received the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II.
Anyone who speaks the language can say "green sun". Many can imagine it or draw it. But that's not all - although even this can be much more impressive than all the numerous stories and novels "from life" that are awarded literary prizes.
Tolkien John Ronald Reuel
After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher produced several works based on his father's notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion.
This book, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, forms a single collection of fairy tales, poems, stories, artificial languages and literary essays about fictional world called Arda and its part of Middle-earth. In 1951-1955, Tolkien used the word "legendarium" to refer to most of this collection.
Many authors wrote fantasy before Tolkien, however, due to his great popularity and strong influence on the genre, many call Tolkien the "father" of modern fantasy literature, meaning mainly "high fantasy".
In Russian, the writer's surname is spelled both "Tolkien" and "Tolkien" in various sources, which often causes controversy among fans of creativity.
To create a Secondary World, where the green sun would be in its place, where we would gain sincere and unconditional Secondary Faith in it - this, apparently, requires both thought and work, and besides, it requires some special skill, similar to skill elves.
(quote from "Tree and Leaf")
Tolkien John Ronald Reuel
In a letter to Richard Jeffery dated December 17, 1972, Tolkien notes: "My last name is constantly written as Tolkein ... I don’t know why - I always pronounce the ending as“ keen ”". Thus, the spelling "Tolkien" more accurately reflects the original pronunciation of the surname. In English, the stress is not fixed, some members of the Tolkien family used the stress on the last syllable - "kin".
According to surviving information, most of Tolkien's paternal ancestors were artisans. The Tolkien family comes from Saxony (Germany), but since the 18th century the writer's ancestors settled in England, quickly becoming "native English". The surname "Tolkien" is an anglicisation of the nickname "Tollkiehn" (German: tollkuhn, "recklessly brave"). Grandmother told little Ronald that their family descended from the famous Hohenzollerns.
Tolkien's mother's parents, John and Edith Suffield, lived in Birmingham, where they owned a large store in the city center from 1812.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (now the Free State, South Africa). His parents, Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1895), an English bank manager, and Mabel Tolkien (née Suffield) (1870–1904), arrived in South Africa shortly before the birth of his son in connection with Arthur's promotion. On February 17, 1894, Arthur and Mabel had a second son, Hilary Arthur Ruel.
As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a tarantula, and this event later influenced his work. The sick boy was cared for by a doctor named Thornton Quimby, and is thought to have been the model for Gandalf the Grey.
I should add something to the many theories and conjectures I have heard or read about the motives and meaning of the story. The main motive was the desire of the narrator to try to write a really long story that could hold the attention of readers for a long time, entertain them, please or inspire ...
Tolkien John Ronald Reuel
In early 1895, after the death of the father of the family, the Tolkien family returned to England. Left alone with two children, Mabel asks for help from relatives. The return home was difficult: Tolkien's mother's relatives did not approve of her marriage. After the death of his father from rheumatic fever, the family settled in Sarehole, near Birmingham.
Mabel Tolkien was left alone with two small children in her arms and with a very modest income, which was just enough to live on. In an effort to find support in life, she immersed herself in religion, converted to Catholicism (this led to a final break with her Anglican relatives) and gave her children an appropriate education, as a result, Tolkien remained a deeply religious person all his life.
Tolkien's strong religious beliefs played a significant role in C. S. Lewis's conversion to Christianity, although to Tolkien's dismay, Lewis preferred the Anglican faith to the Catholic one.
As for various kinds of subtext, this was not the intention of the author. The book is neither allegorical nor thematic.
(Foreword to The Lord of the Rings)
Tolkien John Ronald Reuel
Mabel also taught her son the basics Latin, and also instilled a love of botany, and Tolkien with early years loved to paint landscapes and trees. He read a lot, and from the very beginning he disliked Stevenson's Treasure Island and the Grimm Brothers' Pied Piper, but he liked Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Indian stories, George MacDonald's fantasy works and Andrew's Book of Fairies Lang.
Tolkien's mother died of diabetes in 1904, at the age of 34; before her death, she entrusted the upbringing of children to Father Francis Morgan, a priest of the Birmingham Church, a strong and extraordinary personality. It was Francis Morgan who developed Tolkien's interest in philology, for which he was later very grateful to him.
Preschool children spend in nature. These two years were enough for Tolkien for all the descriptions of forests and fields in his works. In 1900, Tolkien entered King Edward's School, where he learned Old English and began to study others - Welsh, Old Norse, Finnish, Gothic.
He showed an early talent for linguistics, after studying Old Welsh and Finnish he began to develop "elvish" languages. Subsequently, he studied at the school of St. Philip (St. Philip's School) and Oxford College Exeter.
In 1911, while studying at the school of King Edward Tolkien with three friends - Rob Gilson (eng. Rob Gilson), Geoffrey Smith (eng. Geoffrey Smith) and Christopher Wiseman (eng. Christopher Wiseman) - organized a semi-secret circle called the CHKBO - " Tea Club and Barrovian Society” (Eng. T.C.B.S., Tea Club and Barrovian Society).
This name is due to the fact that friends loved tea, which was sold near the school in the supermarket Barrow (Eng. Barrow), as well as in the school library, although this was forbidden. Even after leaving school, members of the Cheka kept in touch, for example, they met in December 1914 at Wiseman's house in London.
Much can be thought out, according to the tastes of lovers of allegories or references to reality. But I have, and have always had, a sincere dislike of allegory in all its manifestations, ever since I was old and dull enough to notice it. I much more like a story, real or fictional, that would in various ways interacted with the reader's experience.
(Foreword to The Lord of the Rings) Many of the living deserve to die, and many of the dead deserve to live. Can you give it back to them? That's the same. Then do not rush to condemn to death. No one, even the wisest of the wise, can see all the intricacies of fate.
(quote from The Lord of the Rings)
Tolkien John Ronald Reuel
In the summer of 1911, Tolkien traveled to Switzerland, which he later mentions in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo Baggins's journey through the Misty Mountains was based on the journey Tolkien and his twelve companions made from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen. In October of that year, he began his studies at Oxford University, Exeter College.
In 1908 he met Edith Mary Brett, who had a great influence on his work.
Falling in love prevented Tolkien from going to college right away, besides, Edith was a Protestant and three years older than him. Father Francis took John's word of honor that he would not meet with Edith until he was 21 years old, that is, until the age of majority, when Father Francis ceased to be his guardian. Tolkien fulfilled his promise by not writing a single line to Mary Edith until that age. They didn't even meet or talk.
In the evening, on the same day when Tolkien turned 21, he wrote a letter to Edith, where he declared his love and offered his hand and heart. Edith replied that she had already agreed to marry another person, because she decided that Tolkien had long forgotten her. In the end, she returned the wedding ring to the groom and announced that she was marrying Tolkien. In addition, at his insistence, she converted to Catholicism.
The engagement took place in Birmingham in January 1913, and the wedding took place on March 22, 1916 in English city Warwick, in catholic church St. Mary. Their union with Edith Brett proved to be a long and happy one. The couple lived together for 56 years and raised 3 sons: John Francis Reuel (1917), Michael Hilary Reuel (1920), Christopher Reuel (1924), and daughter Priscilla Mary Reuel (1929).
In 1914, Tolkien enrolled in the Military Training Corps in order to delay conscription and complete his bachelor's degree. In 1915, Tolkien graduated with honors from the university and went to serve as a lieutenant in the Lancashire Rifles, soon John was called to the front and participated in the First World War.
John survived the bloody battle on the Somme, where two of his best friends from the Cheka (“tea club”) died, after which he hated war, fell ill with typhus, and after a long treatment was sent home with a disability.
He devoted the following years to a scientific career: first teaching at the University of Leeds, in 1922 he received the position of professor of Anglo-Saxon language and literature at Oxford University, where he became one of the youngest professors (at 30 years old) and soon earned a reputation as one of the best philologists in the world.
At the same time, he began to write the great cycle of myths and legends of Middle-Earth (Eng. Middle-Earth), which would later become The Silmarillion. There were four children in his family, for them he first composed, narrated, and then recorded The Hobbit, which was later published in 1937 by Sir Stanley Unwin.
The Hobbit was a success, and Anuin suggested Tolkien write a sequel, but work on the trilogy took long time and the book was not finished until 1954, when Tolkien was about to retire.
The trilogy was published and was a huge success, which surprised the author and publisher a lot. Unwin expected to lose considerable money, but he personally liked the book very much, and he was very eager to publish his friend's work. For the convenience of publication, the book was divided into three parts, so that after the publication and sale of the first part, it became clear whether it was worth printing the rest.
After the death of his wife in 1971, Tolkien returned to Oxford.
At the end of 1972, he suffers greatly from indigestion, X-ray shows dyspepsia. Doctors prescribe him a diet and require him to completely eliminate the use of wine. August 28, 1973 Tolkien goes to Bournemouth, to an old friend - Denis Tolhurst.
August 30, Thursday, he attends Mrs. Tolhurst's birthday party. Felt not very well, ate little, but drank some champagne. It got worse at night, and in the morning Tolkien was taken to a private clinic, where he was found to have a bleeding stomach ulcer.
Despite optimistic forecasts at the beginning, pleurisy developed by Saturday, and on the night of Sunday, September 2, 1973, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien died at the age of eighty-one.
All works published after 1973, including The Silmarillion, were published by his son Christopher.
Even as a child, John and his comrades came up with several languages in order to communicate with each other. This passion for learning existing languages and constructing new ones stayed with him throughout his life.
Tolkien is the creator of several artificial languages: Quenya, or the language of the high elves; Sindarin is the language of the Gray Elves. Tolkien knew dozens of languages, composed new languages, largely guided by the beauty of sound.
He himself said: “No one believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which the language that corresponds to my personal aesthetics could turn out to be natural. However, it's true."
You can read more about Tolkien's linguistic hobbies in the lecture The Secret Vice (Russian), read by him at Oxford in 1931.
Artworks
- Published during his lifetime
* 1925 - "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (with E. B. Gordon)
* 1937 - "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again" / The Hobbit or There and Back Again - with this book Tolkien entered literature. The book originally arose as a work for the family circle - Tolkien began to tell the tale of the hobbit to his children. Appearing almost by accident in print, the story of the adventures of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins unexpectedly gained wide popularity among readers of all ages. Already in this fairy tale a huge mythological layer was laid. Now the book is known more as a kind of prologue to The Lord of the Rings.
* 1945 - Leaf by Niggle
* 1945 - The Lay of Aotrou and Itrun
* 1949 - Farmer Giles of Ham
* 1953 - "The Return of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son" / The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (play)
* 1954-1955 - "The Lord of the Rings" / The Lord of the Rings. The book, back in the mid-1970s, was among the most read and published books in the world. The central work of Tolkien. The Middle-earth epic was published in 1954-1955 in England and after some time gave rise to a real Tolkien cult, which began in America in the 60s.
1954 - The Fellowship of the Ring
1954 - "Two fortresses" / The Two Towers
1955 - "The Return of the King" / The Return of the King
* 1962 - "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book" / The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (verse cycle).
* 1967 - "The road hurries into the distance and into the distance" / The Road Goes Ever On (with Donald Swann)
* 1967 - Smith of Wootton Major
Published posthumously
* 1977 - The Silmarillion / The Silmarillion
* 1980 - "Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth" / Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth
* 1983–1996 - The History of Middle-earth
* 1997 - "Roverandom" / The Roverandom
* 2007 - "Children of Hurin" / The Children of Hurin
* 2009 - "The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun" / The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun
Tolkien's works had a huge impact on the world culture of the 20th and even the 21st century. They have been repeatedly adapted for cinema, animation, audio plays, theater stage, computer games. They created concept albums, illustrations, comics. A large number of imitations of Tolkien's books, their continuations or antitheses, have been created in literature.
Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" has been filmed several times, first as animated films Ralph Bakshi (1978) and Rankin/Bass (1980), and in 2001-2003, Peter Jackson made three big-budget blockbuster The Lord of the Rings films that won multiple awards and grossed over $2 billion at the box office.
There is also a film adaptation of The Hobbit (1977). A number of computer games have been created based on Tolkien's books and their adaptations, the most famous of which are the Battle for Middle-Earth strategy and MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online. Music bands, such as Blind Guardian, Battlelore, Summoning, composed many songs about characters and events from Tolkien's books.
Many famous writers fantasy admit that they turned to this genre under the influence of Tolkien's epic, for example, Robert Jordan, Nick Perumov, Terry Brooks, Robert Salvatore. A contemporary of Professor Ursula Le Guin notes the poetic and rhythmic nature of his style.
However, many famous authors criticize Tolkien. Thus, in particular, China Mieville, acknowledging that “The Lord of the Rings, without a doubt, had the most influence on the fantasy genre,” calls it “village, conservative, anti-modernist, terribly Christian and anti-intellectual.”
Objects named after Tolkien
* asteroid (2675) Tolkien;
* marine crustacean Leucothoe tolkieni from the Nazca and Sala y Gomez submarine ridges ( Pacific Ocean);
* rove beetle Gabrius tolkieni Schillhammer, 1997 (Inhabits Nepal (Khandbari, Induwa Khola Valley));
* genus of fossil trilobites Tolkienia from the family Acastidae (Phacopida).
The names of geographical objects of Middle-earth and the names of characters appearing in Tolkien's works are named after many real geographical objects and animals.
Prizes and awards
* 1957, International Fantasy Award in the Fiction category for The Lord of the Rings (1955)
* 1974 Hugo Award. Gandalf Award "Grand Master of Fantasy"
* 1978, Locus Award in the Fantasy Novel category for The Silmarillion (1977)
* 1978 Hugo Award. Gandalf Award for Book-Length Fantasy for The Silmarillion (1977)
* 1979, Balrog Awards. Professional Achievement(Professional Achievement)
* 1981, Balrog Awards in the Collection/Anthology category for Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth (1980)
* 1981, Mythopoeic Awards in the Fantasy Mythopoeic Award category for Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien (1980)
* 1989, Mythopoeic Awards in the Inkling Mythopoeic Research Award category for The Return of the Shadow (The History of The Lord of the Rings. Part I) (1988)
* 1990, Grand Ring in the category " large form(translation)" for The Two Towers (1954)
* 1991, Grand Ring in the Large Form (Translation) category for The Lord of the Rings (1955)
* 2000, Mythopoeic Awards in the Inkling Mythopoeic Research Award category for Roverandom (1998)
* 2002, Deutscher Phantastik Preis in the category " Best Author»
* 2003, Mythopoeic Awards in the category "Mythopoeic Prize for Inkling Research" for "Beowulf and the Critics" (2002)
* 2009, Mythopoeic Awards in the Inkling Mythopoeic Research Award for The History of The Hobbit (2007)
* 2009, Prometheus Awards. Inducted into the Hall of Fame for The Lord of the Rings (1955)
Evil sets in motion enormous forces and with constant success - but only in vain; it only prepares the ground on which unexpected goodness will sprout. This is how it happens by and large; so it is with our own lives... 
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien UK, Birmingham; 01/03/1892 - 09/02/1973
Tolkien's books had a huge impact on world literature. They have been filmed many times in different countries peace. A huge number of games, cartoons, comics and fanfiction have been created based on Tolkien's books. The writer is rightly called the father contemporary genre fantasy and he consistently ranks high in the ranking of the most influential and popular writers 20th century.
Biography of Tolkien John Ronald Reuel
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 in Republic of South Africa. There, his family ended up thanks to the promotion of his father, who worked as the manager of one of the branches of an English bank. In 1894, the second child was born in the family - Hilary's brother Arthur Ruel. John Tolkien lived in the Republic of South Africa until 1896, when, due to the death of his father, the boys' mother was forced to return to England. The family's income was low, and the mother, in search of consolation, became a deeply religious person. It was she who instilled in children a love for Catholicism, taught the basics of the Latin language, botany, and taught Tolkien to read and write at the age of 4. But when John was only twelve years old, their mother died of diabetes. Since then, the priest of the Birmingham church, Francis Morgan, took up the upbringing of the brothers.
In 1900, John Tolkien entered the school of King Edward, where almost immediately his not hefty abilities for languages were revealed. Thanks to this, by the time he graduated from school, the boy already knew Old English and began to study four more languages. In 1911, John Tolkien visited Switzerland, where, together with his comrades, he overcame 12 km through the mountains. The impressions received during this journey formed the basis of his books. In October of the same year, he entered Oxford University, first at the department classical literature, but soon transferred to the Department of English Language and Literature.
In 1913, John Tolkien announced his engagement to Edith Mary Bret, whom he had known for more than five years, but at the insistence of Francis Morgan, he did not communicate with whom until the age of 21. Despite the fact that by this time Mary had already agreed to marry another person, the engagement took place, and three years later the wedding took place. Together they lived for 56 years, raised three sons and a daughter.
In 1914 the First World War. In order to complete his education, Tolkien enlisted in the Military Corps. But after receiving a bachelor's degree in 1915, he was admitted to the army as a lieutenant. He served in the army until November 1916 and managed to take part in the battle of the Somme and many other battles. He was commissioned due to the disease of trench fever and for more than two years he was subject to attacks of the disease.
After the end of the war, John Tolkien worked as a professor at Leeds and then at Oxford Universities. It was at this time that he began work on his novel The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. The book was originally written for her children, but then she received unexpected confession thanks to publication in 1937. During the Second World War, John Tolkien was asked to take on the job of a codebreaker if necessary, but the need for his services was not in demand.
After the war, in 1945, Tolkien became a professor at Oxford Merton College, as well as an examiner at the University of Dublin. Here he worked until his retirement. At the same time, he begins work on his own famous book"Lord of the Rings". Parts of it have been released since 1954. It was widely successful, and against the backdrop of the emerging hippie movement, was perceived as a revelation. Tolkien's books and the writer himself gained wide popularity because of which he even had to change his phone number. After that, several more Tolkien books were published, but many of the writer's sketches remained sketches and were published by his son after the writer's death. The writer died as a result of a stomach ulcer in 1973. Nevertheless, new Tolkien books are coming out to this day. The writer's son, Christoph Tolkien, took up the revision of his father's unfinished creations. Thanks to this, the books "The Silmarillion" and "Children of Hurin" were published. Tolkien's last book was The Fall of Gondolin, which was released in August 2018.
Tolkien's Books at Top Books
John Tolkien's books are still popular to read today, and recently released film adaptations only stir up interest in his work. This allowed them to occupy high places in ours. And given their so-called academic character in this genre, we predict that in the future Tolkien's books will be read with the same enthusiasm.
J. R. R. Tolkien book list
Middle-earth:
Other books by Tolkien:
Ballad of Aotru and Itrun
Beowulf
Return of Beorchtnoth son of Beorchthelm
The road goes far and wide
History of the Hobbit
History of Middle-earth
Blacksmith of Great Wootton
Tolkien John Ronald Ruel
Life dates: January 3, 1892 - September 2, 1973
Place of Birth
: City of Bloemfontein
English writer, linguist, philologist
Notable works
: The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit
Objects named after Tolkien
* asteroid (2675) Tolkien;
* marine crustacean Leucothoetolkieni from the system of submarine ridges Nazca and Sala y Gomez (Pacific Ocean);
* staphylinid Gabriustolkieni Schillhammer, 1997 (Inhabits Nepal (Khandbari, Induwa Khola Valley)).
JOHN RONALD REWELL TOlkien
1892 - 1973
J. R. R. Tolkien was born in the family of the most ordinary bank employee, but in an unusual place - in Bloemfontein, small town in southern Africa. But his real homeland was England, where his parents soon returned.
His father died when the boy (everyone called him by his middle name - Ronald) was only 4 years old. His mother had a tremendous influence on his character. She was a courageous and stubborn woman. Having converted to Catholicism, she also managed her sons, Ronald and his younger brother, educate in the spirit of faith. It was not easy: indignant relatives, adherents of the Anglican Church, left the family of a young widow without support.
Dreaming of giving your children a good education, she herself taught Ronald French, German, Latin, Greek ... The boy entered an excellent school, became a scholarship holder.
But Ronald's mother dies very early, in 1904. And Ronald and his brother remain in the care of their spiritual father, the priest Francis Morgan. He encouraged Ronald in his zeal for learning ...
However, the young man could not enter Oxford the first time. This is due to the appearance in his life of Edith Bratt. The engagement with the girl was concluded a few days after his coming of age. The marriage turned out to be very happy: the couple raised 4 children and lived together for more than 50 years, until their death.
Already at school, Ronald's great interest in ancient languages and literature became noticeable: he studied Old English, Welsh, Old Norse, Finnish ... He does the same at Oxford, where he nevertheless enters in 1911. After graduating, he becomes one of the youngest university professors. The war forces him to go to the front, but when he returns, he resumes scientific and creative activity.
It was at this time that the world that Tolkien would describe all his life was formed in his imagination. The world expanded, it had its own story and its own characters, its own language, unlike any other, appeared, and those who spoke it appeared - elves, immortal and sad ... Tolkien composed without counting on publication.
But the publication still took place. And thanks to his fairy tale "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again" (1937), Tolkien entered literature.
And the history of writing a fairy tale was very unusual.
Once Tolkien brought to clean slate phrase "In a hole under the ground lived a hobbit" and thought about it: "and who are the hobbits"...? He set about figuring it out. The hobbits turned out to be similar to people, but the truth is rather short. Plump, respectable, they were usually not eager for adventure and liked to eat well. But one of them, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, was involved in a story full of various adventures. It's good that with happy ending... One episode of the story, in which the hero found magic ring in the caves of the vile creature Gollum, as it turned out, connected the tale with next work Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Tolkien thought about the continuation of The Hobbit on the advice of his publisher - and took it with his usual meticulousness and scrupulousness. The number of pages kept growing. Only towards the end of the 40s. the work was completed, and in 1954 the first volume of the epic was published. A truly “adult” novel unfolded against a fabulous background. And not just a novel, but a philosophical parable about good and evil, about the corrupting influence of power, about how sometimes weak person able to do what the strong are not capable of; this is an epic chronicle, and a sermon of mercy, and much more. The end of the novel differs from the traditional fairy tale. After all that has happened, the world cannot return to its former state, and main character, the hobbit Frodo, will never be as carefree as before. The wounds that the ominous ring inflicted on his heart will never heal. Together with the elven ships, he goes beyond the boundless sea, to the West, in search of oblivion...
Tolkien's constant striving for perfection, which forced him to redo what he had written many times in his literary works, did not allow him to publish anything more than a few children's fairy tales. Such as "Farmer Giles of Ham", whose hero, a cowardly peasant, defeats an equally cowardly dragon. Or the allegory tale "The Blacksmith of Big Wootton" (1967), the tale that Magic world is revealed to a person, if he is wise enough to accept it, and about the need to gratefully accept the gifts of fate and part with them, if necessary.
After Tolkien's death, his son, based on drafts, published many more of his father's works, among them - "Letters from Santa Claus", "Mr. Bliss", etc.
Tolkien became famous as children's writer, but his work goes beyond purely children's literature.
M. S. Rachinskaya
Children about writers. Foreign writers.- M.: Sagittarius, 2007.- S.48-49., ill.
Years of life: from 01/03/1892 to 09/02/1973
English writer, philologist, professor at Oxford University, founder of "high fantasy", author of a series fairy tales and the Lord of the Rings trilogy
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in 1892 in what is now South Africa, then the Orange Free State, where his father was transferred to.
In 1895, Tolkien's father dies of a tropical fever and the family is forced to return to England. Tolkien's mother Mabel, seeking to find support in life, turns to religion, accepts Catholicism and passes on her deep religiosity to her children: John Tolkien remains a zealous Catholic until the end of his life.
In 1900, Tolkien entered the King Edward's School, where the writer's bright linguistic abilities soon showed up. He studies Old English, Welsh, Old Norse, Finnish, Gothic, on the basis of which he will later develop the "elvish" language.
In October 1911, Tolkien entered Oxford, where he studied at Exeter College.
After graduating from university in 1915, Tolkien went to serve as a lieutenant in the Lancashire Rifles and soon got to the front - the First World War was on.
Having lost two friends in the war, Tolkien is going through a severe shock and, having suffered typhus, returns to his homeland.
From this moment begins the scientific career of the writer. At first he taught at the University of Leeds, and in 1922 he received the position of professor of Anglo-Saxon language and literature at Oxford University, where he became one of the youngest professors (at 30).
At this time, he begins to write a cycle of myths and legends of Middle-earth, known to us as
For his children, he composes a fairy tale, which is published by the writer's friend Sir Stanley Unwin. The book is an unexpected success, and Unwin asks Tolkien to write a sequel. However, the work was delayed and was completed only in 1954.
In 1971, the writer's wife dies, whose death was a severe shock to Tolkien. He himself survived her by only two years, dying of a short serious illness in 1973.
As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a tarantula, from the poison of which the boy fell ill. The patient was cared for by Dr. Thornton Quimby, who, as some researchers suggest, became one of the prototypes of Gandalf the Grey.
Tolkien met his wife Edith Marie Brett in 1908, but she was older than him and a Protestant. Tolkien's guardian was against this marriage, so he set a condition: young people should not meet or write to each other until Tolkien is 21 years old.
When that day came, Tolkien wrote a letter to his beloved, in which he confessed his love to her and asked her to become his wife. She replied that she was engaged to another because she thought that he had forgotten her over the years. In the end, she returned the ring to the groom and announced that she was marrying Tolkien! In addition, at his insistence, she converted to Catholicism.
The engagement took place in Birmingham in January 1913, and the wedding took place on March 22, 1916 in the English city of Warwick, in the Catholic Church of St. Mary. Their union with Edith Brett proved to be a long and happy one. The couple lived together for 56 years and raised 3 sons: John Francis Reuel (1917), Michael Hilary Reuel (1920), Christopher Reuel (1924), and daughter Priscilla Mary Reuel (1929).
Named after Tolkien:
asteroid(2675) Tolkien;
sea crustacean Leucothoe tolkieni from Nazca and Sala y Gomez (Pacific Ocean);
rove beetle Gabrius tolkieni Schillhammer, 1997 (Inhabits Nepal (Khandbari, Induwa Khola Valley));
genus of fossil trilobites Tolkienia from the family Acastidae (Phacopida).
The names of geographical objects of Middle-earth and the names of characters appearing in Tolkien's works are named after many real geographical objects and animals.
rock band members The Beatles who liked The Lord of the Rings wanted to make musical film by the book and star in it yourself. Paul McCartney was to play Frodo, Ringo Starr was Sam, George Harrison was Gandalf, and John Lennon was Gollum. Tolkien was shocked by such an idea.
