J.R.R. Tolkien (born January 3, 1892,Bloemfontein, South Africa—died September 2, 1973,Bournemouth, Hampshire, England) was an English writer and scholar who achieved fame with hischildren’s bookThe Hobbit (1937) and his richly inventive epicfantasyThe Lord of the Rings (1954–55).

Childhood, education, and World War I

At age four Tolkien, with his mother and younger brother, settled nearBirmingham,England, after his father, a bank manager, died inSouth Africa. In 1900 his motherconverted toRoman Catholicism, a faith her elder son also practiced devoutly. On her death in 1904, her boys became wards of a Catholicpriest. Four years later Tolkien fell in love with another orphan, Edith Bratt, who would inspire his fictional character Lúthien Tinúviel. His guardian, however, disapproved, and not until his 21st birthday could Tolkien ask Edith to marry him.

In the meantime, he attended King Edward’s School in Birmingham and Exeter College,Oxford (B.A., 1915; M.A., 1919). DuringWorld War I he saw action in theFirst Battle of the Somme. After theArmistice he was briefly on the staff ofThe Oxford English Dictionary (then calledThe New English Dictionary).

Britannica Quiz

Classic Children’s Books Quiz

Oxford career and the Inklings

For most of his adult life, Tolkien taughtEnglish language andliterature, specializing inOld andMiddle English, at the Universities ofLeeds (1920–25) and Oxford (1925–59). Often busy with academic duties and also acting as an examiner for otheruniversities, he produced few but influential scholarly publications, notably a standard edition ofSir Gawain and the Green Knight (1925; with E.V. Gordon) and a landmark lecture onBeowulf (Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, 1936). Tolkien had completed a translation ofBeowulf in 1926, and it was posthumously published, along with classroom lectures he had given on the subject, some of his notes, and an originalshort story inspired by thelegend, asBeowulf: A Translation and Commentary (2014). He also published an edition of theAncrene Wisse (1962).

In 1926 Tolkien metC.S. Lewis, a fellow writer and a colleague at Oxford. The two men became friends and began attending meetings of a student literary group called theInklings. After the student group ceased meeting in 1933, Tolkien, Lewis, and other friends and university colleagues adopted the name for their own literary group, which met informally into the 1940s. According to Tolkien, the group’s name was a pun, meaning both “people with vague or half-formed intimations and ideas” and “those who dabble in ink.” They held meetings at the Eagle and Child pub (commonly known as the “Bird and Baby”) in Oxford, where they sharedcamaraderie. The group also met in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College to read to each other their works-in-progress. Tolkien would dedicate the first edition ofThe Lord of the Rings to the Inklings, and he credited Lewis and the group with encouraging him to finish it.

The Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings

In private, Tolkien amused himself bywriting an elaborate series of fantasy tales, often dark and sorrowful, set in a world of his own creation. He made this “legendarium,” which eventually becameThe Silmarillion, partly to provide a setting in which“Elvish” languages he had invented could exist. But his tales of Arda and Middle-earth also grew from a desire to tell stories, influenced by a love ofmyths andlegends. To entertain his four children, hedevised lighter fare, lively and often humorous. The longest and most important of those stories, begun about 1930, wasThe Hobbit, a coming-of-age fantasy abouta comfort-loving “hobbit” (a smaller relative of Man) who joins a quest for adragon’s treasure.

In 1937The Hobbit was published, with pictures by the author (an accomplished amateur artist), and was so popular that its publisher asked for a sequel. The result, 17 years later, was Tolkien’s masterpiece,The Lord of the Rings, a modern version of the heroicepic. A few elements fromThe Hobbit were carried over, in particular amagic ring, now revealed to be the One Ring, which must be destroyed before it can be used by the terrible Dark Lord, Sauron, to rule the world. ButThe Lord of the Rings is also an extension of Tolkien’s Silmarillion tales, which gave the new book a “history” in which Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Men were already established.

Get Unlimited Access

Try Britannica Premium for free and discover more.

Subscribe

Contrary to statements often made by critics,The Lord of the Rings was not written specifically for children, nor is it a trilogy, though it is often published in three parts:The Fellowship of the Ring,The Two Towers, andThe Return of the King. It was divided originally because of its bulk and to reduce the risk to its publisher should it fail to sell. In fact it proved immensely popular. On its publication in paperback in theUnited States in 1965, it attained cult status oncollege campuses. Although some criticsdisparage it, several polls since 1996 have namedThe Lord of the Rings the best book of the 20th century, and its success made it possible for other authors to thrive by writing fantasyfiction. It had sold more than 50 million copies in some 30 languages by the turn of the 21st century.

1 of 2

2 of 2

A film version ofThe Lord of the Rings byNew Zealand directorPeter Jackson, released in three installments in 2001–03, achieved worldwide critical and financial success. Jackson then adaptedThe Hobbit as a trilogycomprising the filmsAn Unexpected Journey (2012),The Desolation of Smaug (2013), andThe Battle of the Five Armies (2014). In 2004 the text ofThe Lord of the Rings was carefully corrected for a 50th-anniversary edition.

Other works

Several shorter works by Tolkien appeared during his lifetime. These included a mock-medieval story,Farmer Giles of Ham (1949);The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962),poetry related toThe Lord of the Rings;Tree and Leaf(1964), with theseminal lecture “On Fairy-Stories” and the tale “Leaf by Niggle”; and the fantasySmith of Wootton Major (1967).

Tolkien in hisold age failed to completeThe Silmarillion, the “prequel” toThe Lord of the Rings, and left it to his youngest son, Christopher, to edit and publish (1977). Subsequent study of his father’s papers led Christopher to produceUnfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth (1980);The History of Middle-earth, 12 vol. (1983–96), which traces the writing of the legendarium, includingThe Lord of the Rings, through its various stages; andThe Children of Húrin (Narn I Chin Hurin: The Tale of the Children of Hurin), published in 2007, one of the three “Great Tales” ofThe Silmarillion in longer form. Christopher also editedBeren and Lúthien (2017), which centers on the romance between a man and an elf and was inspired by Tolkien’s relationship with his wife, andThe Fall of Gondolín (2018), the third of the “Great Tales,” about an Elvish city resisting the reign of a dark lord; both books contain various retellings of the stories, including the original versions that were written in 1917.

Among otherposthumous works by Tolkien areThe Father Christmas Letters (1976; also published asLetters from Father Christmas),The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981), the children’s storiesMr. Bliss (1982) andRoverandom (1998), andThe Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (2009), two narrative poems drawn from northern legend and written in the style of thePoeticEdda.The Fall of Arthur (2013) is an unfinished verse exploration ofArthurian legend inspired by the Middle EnglishMorte Arthure.