J.R.R. Tolkien: Biography and Early Life

Tolkien's paternal ancestors were middle-class craftsmen who made and sold clocks, watches and pianos in London and Birmingham.

His father, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford.

Tolkien's family originated from Kreuzburg, a town in East Prussia.

Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on 3 January 1892.

After graduating from the University of Oxford, Tolkien moved to Oxford to become a professor.

He then retired from his professorship and moved to Merton College, Oxford.

Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis and was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

Tolkien died on 2 September 1973.

Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

His father, Arthur Reuel Tolkien, died in 1896, leaving the family without an income.

Mabel Tolkien, his mother, taught her two sons at home.

Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil.

She taught him a great deal of botany and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants.

Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages.

Mabel Tolkien was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1900.

In 1904, when J. R. R. Tolkien was 12, his mother died of acute diabetes.

Nine years after her death, Tolkien wrote, "My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith."

Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England

He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, and then St Philip's School

He won a Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward's in 1903

In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith, and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S.

After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a council in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry.

In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter

He began studying at Exeter College, Oxford, in October 1913 but changed to English language and literature in 1913

He graduated with first-class honours in 1915

He met Edith Mary Bratt in 1909 and they were married in 1916

His guardian, Father Morgan, considered it "altogether unfortunate" that his surrogate son was romantically involved with an older, Protestant woman

Tolkien's family was shocked when he elected not to volunteer immediately for the British Army and instead entered a programme by which he delayed enlistment until completing his degree.

In July 1915, he was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers.

He trained with the 13th (Reserve) Battalion on Cannock Chase, Rugeley Camp near to Rugeley, Staffordshire, for 11 months.

On 2 June 1916, he received a telegram summoning him to Folkestone for posting to France.

The Tolkiens spent the night before his departure in a room at the Plough & Harrow Hotel in Edgbaston, Birmingham.

He later wrote: "Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute. Parting from my wife then... it was like a death."