Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel, 1892-1973 (writer, poet, philologist)
Dates
- Existence: 1892 - 1973
Biography
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL, was born in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (now Free State Province in South Africa) on 3 January 1892. He was taught at home and later at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and at St. Philip's School. In October 1911, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford, initially reading Classics but changing to English Language and Literature in 1913. He graduated in 1915.
In July 1915 he was commissioned in the Lancashire Fusiliers, and in 1916 was at the Battle of the Somme but later in the year he was struck down by fever and hospitalised. He spent the remainder of the war alternating between hospitals and garrison duties. After he was demobilised from the army in 1920, Tolkien worked on the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin. Also in 1920, he became Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, becoming the youngest professor there. In 1925, he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College. In 1945, Tolkien moved to Merton College, Oxford, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, and he remained there until his retirement in 1959.
In addition to a translation of Beowulf, the writing of The Hobbit or There and Back Again, and The Lord of the Rings (1948), he wrote A Middle English Vocabulary. J. R. R. Tolkien died in Bournemouth on 2 September 1973.