James Ronald Reul Tolkien The Gripping Telling of His Life and Accomplishments

It all started back in 1892 when J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Cape Town South Africa.  To mother Mabel Suffield, who he took after more, and Arthur Tolkien, they lived in south Africa for a number of years, during which Ronald (The first R in JRR) gained a younger brother, Hillary. Their stay there was cut short when February of 1896 when he met his father untimely demise from undetermined causes. At this time the family moved to England to start a new life. Ronald was barely young enough to remember his father so this was not a large impact on his young life and it did not affect him in any negative ways. While he was living in South Africa he was bitten by a large tarantula. Although he said that he harbored no hatred of spiders this early terror obviously influenced him to make several spiders evil characters in his books later.

            The first place that Ronald and Hilary were taken by their mother was to her parent’s house the three stayed there in a crowded villa until she could find a decent place for them to stay. This is where many of his Suffield esq’ characteristics came from. He observed the activities of the house, the Religious practices which were maybe the most important thing to him, and the over-all loving atmosphere. Although he did like it at the Suffield’s abode it did not take long for him to be relocated to another home.

This house at 5 Gracewell in Sarehole was at the end of the road about a mile out of  town in a detatched brick cottage. To say that this home had a small impact on him would be but a fragment of the truth. This is where he learned about himself and others, about how the world works, the love of language and his devotion to how words, of all kind, should be used. He would go through the White Ogre’s yard on his way to his favorite tree which he vehemently defended that he could communicate with on an extemporal level.  Many of the stories that he enjoyed from that time were ones of far off lands that could not be disproven by the modernity of the culture which we have grown accustom to doing. He longed to shoot a bow and arrow or travel to India. He greatly enjoyed the “Curdie” books by George McDonald while he was young. He also thoroughly enjoyed the story about the brave knight Sigurd who slew the dragon Fafnir. This story made him desire a world with dragons although he did not want them in his neighborhood. Tolkien wished to create such a world even at this young age.His  mother was a great influence on him at this time. While he lived here he was taught to read and write and was taught the classics of English literature.

Christianity had always occupied a large part of Mable’s life. Each Sunday she would take Ronald and Hillary to a ‘High’ Anglican church. Then, one day, the boys found themselves being brought to a Catholic church far away from home. It was also time for Ronald to start going to school. He was accepted at King Edward’s which was also far away from his home. These two factors combined with the fact that, because Mable had become Catholic, she had stopped receiving financial support caused Mable to decide that it was time to move the family out of the home where they had been so happy, and into a small, forlorn, abode in the center of the city of Birmingham. But it was not long after that they were forced to move again to a less dreary house near an Oratory school where Tolkien met a kind priest named Father Francis. Because of its nearness Mable had transferred Tolkien to the Oratory but it was not long before she realized that he was too smart for the school and had him transferred back into King Edward’s. In late June of 1904 the Tolkiens moved back to Sarehole because Mable was feeling sick. Not long after this move she died in her bed.

            The death of his mother caused Tolkien to develop a split personality. One side was the Tolkien that everybody knew, cheerful, loved good talk, great at making friends. But the other side more private a depressed side filled only with the feeling that everything will be lost. Fatther Francis was made their guardian and it wasn’t long before he had found a place for the boys to stay. It was a humble home belonging to one Mrs. Faulkner it was here that Tolkien Met Edith. She was another orphan, three years older than Tolkien and soon after meeting they developed a romance soon after. Father Francis did not agree with this relation ship though and forbade them to see each other until Tolkien was 21 and no longer under his guardianship.

            Meanwhile, at school Tolkien was excelling. He had begun inventing his own languages and learning existing ones and soon he was applying to collage at Oxford. He applied twice and the second time he was accepted. He went into collage with a scholarship because he lacked the funding for full tuition. He was there for two years before he decided to major in philology, the study of language. A year after majoring in Philology he Was called into service for the war. He specialized in the art of signaling and codes. During this time he begins to write one of his more obscure pieces, The Silmarilion. Which is his mythology for later books such as The Lord of the Rings and  The Hobbit.

After the war Tolkien moved back to Oxford where he became a professor of Anglo-Saxon for twenty years. After that, he moved to a seaside resort, moved back to Oxford after the death of Edith and died himself at the age of 81. It is safe to say that after this point in his life nothing interesting happened. Accept that during this time he wrote two books that became world best-sellers, books that have captured the imagination and the hearts of several million readers. Books that were written by an ordinary, Oxford professor who spent his time raising his children and tending to his garden. Tolkien had always enjoyed telling stories to his children and was also busy writing his mythology. What he needed was some say to combine the two sides of his writing. So, one day when he was looking out over the garden and grading a student’s paper he wrote something that had popped into his head. What he wrote was this, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” and so he thought to himself, “Well then, I better find out what a hobbit is.” And thus, the first of his books was born and it was not long before The Hobbit was selling out in bookstores all over England and the US.

It took him much longer to write its sequel, twelve years to be exact, and many revisions (that would make this report far too long if I listed them all) before it was ready to be published but here he encountered even more problems. He wanted for the publishing company that published LOTR also to agree to publish The Silmarilian. But the company He had published the hobbit with did not want to publish Silmarilan because the price of paper was high and they were not sure if they could make a profit out of it. Eventually, with some reluctance, they agreed to publish the book. But Tolkien had only one copy fully typed and ready to go and he did not trust the postal service with this precious package and wanted to deliver it by hand. Which presented a problem as he and the publishers would not be in the same place for several weeks. It was decided that the book should be split into three volumes as the book was to long to print all at once. When the printing presses finally got rolling and issues were distributed the publishers did not expect that the book would sell very well as it was bulky and did not appeal to one market, being neither a children’s book or an adult’s novel. Success was almost immediate and a reprint was ordered six weeks after publication. The Two Towers and The Return of the King were soon to follow with similar success.

Fame puzzled Tolkien as it did not fit his personality. Although it did allow him to publish several stories that were rejected before the publication of LOTR. But it was not long before the amount of fan-mail was overwhelming and he had to move his family somewhere else. By now it was only he and Edith living in the house and they decided to retire to Bournemouth. The quiet seaside village mentioned earlier. It was here that Edith died of an inflamed gall-bladder on November, 29 1971.

Tolkien was deeply hurt by this loss but when he was over the initial shock of losing his loved one he had to go back to oxford. This however did not completely pan out so he decided to stay at Merton Collage which had offered him a stay there. They treated him very well providing him with everything that he could want including breakfast in bed lunch and dinner in his room etc. He was often found in his room alone and was although not entirely antisocial somewhat becoming a loner. His death came quickly and suddenly and on September 2nd 1973 he died at the ripe old age of 81.

            One of the greatest creators of him time J.R.R. Tolkien’s works have transcended generations and boundaries of age, race and language to become one of the most prized works of all time. He is by myself (Carl) anyway considered one of the greatest authors of all time.