John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on January 3, 1892, to Arthur Tolkien and Mabel Suffield Tolkien. When his father died in 1896 his mother took him and his younger brother to his father’s native village of Sarehole, near Birmingham, England. The landscapes and Nordic mythology of the Midlands may have been the source for Tolkien’s fertile imagination to write about “the Shire” and “hobbits”.
After his mother’s death in 1904 he was looked after by Father Francis Xavier Morgan a priest of the Congregation of the Oratory. Tolkien went on to get his first-class degree at Exeter College, specializing in Anglo-Saxon and Germanic languages and classic literature. Continuing his linguistic studies, Tolkien joined the faculty of the University of Leeds in 1920 and a few years later became a professor at Oxford University. The award winning fantasy novel The Hobbit — about the small, furry-footed Bilbo Baggins and his adventures — was published in 1937 and was regarded as a children’s book, though Tolkien would state the book wasn’t originally intended for children. He also created more than 100 drawings to support the narrative.
Over the years, while working on scholarly publications, Tolkien developed the work that would come to be regarded as his masterpiece; The Lord of the Rings series, partially inspired by ancient European myths, with its own sets of maps, lore and languages. Tolkien released part one of the series, The Fellowship of the Ring, in 1954; The Two Towers and The Return of the King followed in 1955, finishing up the trilogy. The books gave readers a rich literary trove populated by elves, goblins, talking trees and all manner of fantastic creatures, including characters like the wizard Gandalf and the dwarf Gimli.
Tolkien retired from professorial duties in 1959, going on to publish an essay and poetry collection,Tree and Leaf, and the fantasy tale Smith of Wootton Major. He died in 1973 at 81.