John Tolkien - biography, information, personal life. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien biography of D Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Born 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein, Orange Republic - died 2 September 1973 in Bournemouth, England. English writer, linguist, poet, philologist, professor at Oxford University. He is best known as the author of classic high fantasy works: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

Tolkien held the positions of Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford University (1925-1945), and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Merton College, Oxford University (1945-1959). Together with his close friend C.S. Lewis, he was a member of the informal literary society “Inklings”.

On 28 March 1972 he received the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) from Queen Elizabeth II.

After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher produced several works based on his father's extensive corpus of notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. This book, along with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, forms a single collection of tales, poems, histories, artificial languages ​​and literary essays about the fictional world called Arda and its part of Middle-earth.

From 1951 to 1955, Tolkien used the word "legendarium" to refer to much of this collection. Many authors wrote fantasy works before Tolkien, but due to his great popularity and strong influence on the genre, many call Tolkien the "father" of modern fantasy literature, meaning mainly "high fantasy".

In 2008, the British newspaper The Times ranked him sixth on its list of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945".

In 2009, the American magazine Forbes named him the fifth highest-earning deceased celebrity.

Most of Tolkien's paternal ancestors were craftsmen. The Tolkien family comes from Lower Saxony, but from the 18th century the writer’s ancestors settled in England, “quickly becoming native Englishmen,” as Tolkien himself put it. Tolkien derived his surname from the German word tollkühn, which means “recklessly brave.”

Several families with the surname Tolkien and its variants still live in northwestern Germany, primarily in Lower Saxony and Hamburg. One German writer suggested that the surname most likely came from the name of the village of Tolkynen near Rastenburg in East Prussia (now north-eastern Poland), although it is far from Lower Saxony. The name of this village, in turn, comes from the extinct Prussian language.

Tolkien's mother's parents, John and Emily Jane Suffield, lived in Birmingham, where they owned a building in the city center called Lamb House from the early 19th century.

From 1812, Tolkien's great-great-grandfather William Suffield kept a book and stationery store there, and from 1826 Tolkien's great-grandfather, also John Suffield, sold decorative fabrics and stockings there.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (now Free State, South Africa). His parents, Arthur Ruel Tolkien (1857-1895), an English bank manager, and Mabel Tolkien (née Suffield) (1870-1904), arrived in South Africa shortly before the birth of their son in connection with Arthur's promotion.

As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a tarantula. The sick boy was cared for by a doctor named Thornton Quimby, and is believed to have served as the inspiration for Gandalf the Grey.

In February 1896, after the death of the father of the family, the Tolkien family returned to England. Left alone with two children, Mabel asks her relatives for help. Returning home was difficult: Tolkien's mother's relatives did not approve of her marriage. After the death of his father from rheumatic fever, the family settled in Sarehole, near Birmingham.

Mabel Tolkien was left alone with two small children in her arms and a very modest income, which was just enough to live on.

Trying to find support in life, she immersed herself in religion, converted to Catholicism (this led to a final break with her Anglican relatives) and gave her children an appropriate education. As a result, Tolkien remained a deeply religious man throughout his life.

Tolkien's strong religious beliefs played a significant role in C.S. Lewis's conversion to Christianity, although, to Tolkien's disappointment, Lewis chose the Anglican faith over the Catholic faith.

Mabel also taught her son the basics of Latin, as well as a love of botany, and Tolkien loved to draw landscapes and trees from an early age. By the age of four, thanks to the efforts of his mother, baby John could already read and even write his first letters. He read a lot, and from the very beginning he disliked Stevenson's Treasure Island and the Pied Piper of Hammel by the Brothers Grimm, but he liked Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, stories about Indians, George MacDonald's fantasy works and Andrew's Fairy Book Lang. Tolkien's mother died of diabetes in 1904, at the age of 34. Before her death, she entrusted the upbringing of her children to Father Francis Morgan, a priest of the Birmingham church, a strong and extraordinary personality. It was Francis Morgan who developed little Ronald's interest in philology, for which he was later very grateful to him.

Children spend their preschool years outdoors. These two years were enough for Tolkien to write all the descriptions of forests and fields in his works.

In 1900, Tolkien entered King Edward's School, where he learned Old English and began to study others - Welsh, Old Norse, Finnish, Gothic.

He showed early linguistic talent, and after studying Old Welsh and Finnish, he began to develop “Elvish” languages. He subsequently studied at St. Philip's School and Oxford Exeter College.

In 1911, while studying at King Edward's School (Birmingham), Tolkien and three friends - Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Smith and Christopher Wiseman - organized a semi-secret circle , called ChKBO - "Tea Club and Barrovian Society" (eng. T.C.B.S., Tea Club and Barrovian Society). This name is due to the fact that friends loved tea, which was sold near the school in the Barrow supermarket, as well as in the school library, although this was prohibited. Even after graduation, members of the Cheka kept in touch, for example, they met in December 1914 at Wiseman's house in London.

In the summer of 1911, Tolkien visited Switzerland, which he later mentioned in a letter in 1968, noting that Bilbo Baggins's journey through the Misty Mountains was based on the route that Tolkien and twelve companions took from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen. In October of the same year, he began his studies at Oxford University (Exeter College).

In 1914, Tolkien enlisted in the Military Training Corps in order to delay conscription in order to earn his bachelor's degree. In 1915, Tolkien graduated with honors from the university and went to serve as a lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. Soon John was drafted to the front and participated in the First World War.

John survived the bloody Battle of the Somme, where two of his best friends from the Cheka (“tea club”) were killed, after which he hated war, contracted typhus and, after long treatment, was sent home with disability. He devoted the following years to his scientific career: first he taught at the University of Leeds, in 1922 he received the position of professor of Anglo-Saxon language and literature at the University of Oxford, where he became one of the youngest professors (at 30 years old) and soon earned a reputation as one of the best philologists in world.

At the same time, he began writing the cycle of myths and legends of Middle-Earth, which would later become The Silmarillion. There were four children in his family, for whom he first composed, narrated and then recorded The Hobbit, which was later published in 1937 by Sir Stanley Unwin. "The Hobbit" was a success, and Anuin invited Tolkien to write a sequel, but work on the trilogy took a long time and the book was completed only in 1954, when Tolkien was already preparing to retire.

The trilogy was published and was a huge success, which surprised both the author and the publisher. Anuin expected to lose significant money, but he personally loved the book and was eager to publish his friend's work. For ease of publication, the book was divided into three parts, so that after the publication and sale of the first part it would become clear whether the rest were worth printing.

In 1914, Great Britain entered the First World War. Tolkien's relatives were shocked that he did not immediately volunteer for the British Army.

Instead, Tolkien began a course of study, delaying entry into the army until he received his degree in 1915. After this he was commissioned into the Lancashire Fusiliers with the rank of second lieutenant.

He spent 11 months training with the 13th Battalion in Staffordshire on the Cannock Chase. “Gentlemen are rare among bosses and, to be honest, neither are human beings.”, - Tolkien was indignant in a letter to Edith.

On 4 June 1916, Tolkien departed for France as part of the 11th Battalion of the British Expeditionary Forces, to which he had been transferred. His journey on military transport inspired him to write the poem The Lonely Isle ( "Lonely Island"). He later wrote: “The junior officers were in a state of shock for a long time. Separating from my wife then... was like death.".

Tolkien served as a signalman on the Somme River, where he took part in the Battle of Thiepval Ridge and the subsequent assault on the Swabian Redoubt.

The time of battle was the greatest stress for Tolkien’s wife Edith; she was frightened by every knock on the door, fearing that they would bring news of her husband’s death. Due to British Army postal censorship, Tolkien developed a secret code that he used to write letters home. Thanks to this code, Edith was able to track her husband's movements on a map of the Western Front.

On October 27, 1916, Tolkien fell ill with trench fever, spread by lice that lived in large numbers in the dugouts.

Tolkien was released from military service and sent to England on November 8, 1916. Many of his dear school friends, including Gilson and Smith, did not return from the war.

Weak and exhausted, Tolkien spent the rest of the war in hospitals and garrisons, considered unfit for basic service.

During his restoration at the farmhouse at Little Haywood in Staffordshire, Tolkien began working on "The Book of Lost Tales"(eng. The Book of Lost Tales), starting with "The Falls of Gondolin"(eng. The Fall of Gondolin).

Throughout 1917 and 1918, he experienced several exacerbations of the disease, but recovered enough to serve in various military camps, and was promoted to lieutenant. During this time, Edith gave birth to their first child, John Francis Reuel Tolkien.

When Tolkien served in Kingston upon Hull, he and Edith went for a walk in the forest, near the village of Roos, and Edith danced for him in a clearing between hemlock flowers.

Tolkien's first civilian job after the First World War was as an assistant lexicographer in 1919, when he, discharged from the army, joined the work on the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter "W".

In 1920 he took up the post of reader (similar in many ways to a lecturer position) in English at the University of Leeds, and (of those hired) became the youngest professor there.

During the University he released "A Dictionary of Middle English" and published the final edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (with philologist Eric Valentine Gordon) - a publication that included the original text and commentaries, which are often confused with the translation of this work into modern English, created later by Tolkien along with the translations "Pearls"("Perle" - in Middle English) and "Sir Orfeo".

In 1925, Tolkien returned to Oxford, where he took up (until 1945) the position of Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College.

During the time of Pembroke College he writes "The Hobbit" and the first two volumes "Lord of the Rings", living at 20 Northmoor Road, North Oxford, where his Blue Plaque was erected in 2002.

In 1932 he also published a philological essay on "Nudens" (also "Nudens" - the Celtic god of healing, sea, hunting and dogs), following Sir Mortimer Wheeler when he went to excavate a Roman asklepion in Gloucestershire, Lydney Park.

In the 1920s, Tolkien began translating "Beowulf", which he completed in 1926 but did not publish. The poem was eventually edited by Tolkien's son and published by him in 2014, more than forty years after Tolkien's death and almost 90 years after its completion.

Ten years after completing the translation, Tolkien gave a very famous lecture on this work, entitled "Beowulf: Monsters and Critics", which had a decisive influence on research on Beowulf.

At the beginning of World War II, Tolkien was considered for the post of codebreaker. In January 1939 he was inquired about the possibility of serving in the cryptographic department of the Foreign Office in the event of a state of emergency. He agreed and completed a training course at the London headquarters of the Government Communications Centre. Be that as it may, although Tolkien was quite astute to become a codebreaker, in October he was informed that the government did not need his services at the moment. As a result, he never served again.

In 2009, the Daily Telegraph claimed that Tolkien had, for some unknown reason, turned down an offer to become a full-time recruit at £500 a year.

Although Tolkien hated Adolf Hitler and Nazism, he was appalled by the Allied bombing of Germany. In 1945, Tolkien wrote to his son Christopher: “It is assumed that we have reached that stage of civilization at which it may still be necessary to execute a criminal, but there is no need to gloat or hang up his wife and child nearby, while the Orc crowd cackles. The destruction of Germany, be it a hundred times deserved, is one one of the world's worst catastrophes. Well, you and I are powerless to do anything about it. This should be the measure of guilt that is rightly attributed to any citizen of a country who is not a member of its government. Well, the first War of the Machines, seems to be approaching its final, unfinished stage - despite the fact that as a result, alas, everyone became poor, many were orphaned or crippled, and millions died, but one thing won: the Machines.".

In 1945, Tolkien became Professor of English Language and Literature at Merton College, Oxford, and remained in this post until his retirement in 1959. For many years he worked as an external examiner at University College Dublin.

In 1954, Tolkien received an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland (University College Dublin was part of it).

In 1948, Tolkien completed work on the novel "Lord of the Rings"- almost a decade after the first draft. He offered the book to Allen & Unwin. According to Tolkien, The Silmarillion should have been published simultaneously with The Lord of the Rings, but the publishing house did not agree to this.

Then, in 1950, Tolkien offered his work to Collins, but publisher Milton Waldman said that the novel was “in dire need of trimming.” In 1952, Tolkien wrote again to Allen & Unwin: "I will gladly consider publishing any part of the text." The publisher agreed to publish the novel in its entirety, without cuts.

In the early 1960s, The Lord of the Rings was released in the United States with Tolkien's permission by Ballantine Books and was a stunning commercial success. The novel fell on fertile ground: the youth of the 1960s, captivated by the hippie movement and the ideas of peace and freedom, saw in the book the embodiment of many of their dreams.

In the mid-1960s, The Lord of the Rings experienced a real boom. The author himself admitted that success flatters him, but over time he got tired of popularity. He even had to change his phone number because fans were bothering him with calls.

In 1961, Clive S. Lewis lobbied for Tolkien to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. However, Swedish academics rejected the nomination with the wording that Tolkien’s books “can in no way be called prose of the highest class.” The Yugoslav writer Ivo Andric received the prize that year.

Tolkien also translated the book of the prophet Jonah for publication "Jerusalem Bible", which was published in 1966.

After the death of his wife in 1971, Tolkien returned to Oxford.

At the end of 1972 he suffered greatly from indigestion and an X-ray showed dyspepsia. Doctors prescribed him a diet and demanded that he completely avoid drinking wine.

On August 28, 1973, Tolkien went to Bournemouth to visit an old friend, Denis Tolhurst. On Thursday 30 August he attended Mrs Tolhurst's birthday party. I didn’t feel very well, I ate little, but I drank a little champagne. It got worse at night and in the morning Tolkien was taken to a private clinic, where they discovered a bleeding stomach ulcer. Despite optimistic predictions at first, pleurisy developed by Saturday, and on the night of Sunday, September 2, 1973, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien died at the age of eighty-one.

The couple were buried in the same grave.

Tolkien family:

In 1908 he met Edith Mary Brett, who had a great influence on his work.

Falling in love prevented Tolkien from immediately entering college; besides, Edith was a Protestant and three years older than him. Father Francis took John's word of honor that he would not date Edith until he turned 21 - that is, until he came of age, when Father Francis ceased to be his guardian. Tolkien kept his promise by not writing a line to Mary Edith until this age. They didn't even meet or talk.

On the evening of the same day, when Tolkien turned 21, he wrote a letter to Edith, declaring his love and proposing his hand and heart. Edith replied that she had already agreed to marry another person because she decided that Tolkien had long forgotten her. Eventually, she returned the engagement ring to her groom and announced that she was marrying Tolkien. In addition, at his insistence, she converted to Catholicism.

The engagement took place in Birmingham in January 1913, and the wedding took place on March 22, 1916 in the English city of Warwick, in St. Mary's Catholic Church. His union with Edith Brett turned out to be long and happy. The couple lived together for 56 years and raised three sons: John Francis Ruel (1917), Michael Hilary Ruel (1920), Christopher Ruel (1924), and daughter Priscilla Mary Ruel (1929).

Bibliography of Tolkien:

1925 - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (co-authored with E.B. Gordon) 1937 - The Hobbit or There and Back Again
1945 - “Leaf by Niggle” / Leaf by Niggle
1945 - “The Ballad of Aotrou and Itroun” / The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun
1949 - Farmer Giles of Ham
1953 - “The Return of Beorhtnoth, son of Beorhthelm” / The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son (play)
1954-1955 - “The Lord of the Rings” / The Lord of the Rings
1954 - “The Two Towers”
1955 - The Return of the King
1962 - “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book” (cycle of poems)
1967 - “The Road Goes Ever On” / The Road Goes Ever On (with Donald Swann)
1967 - “Blacksmith from Big Wootton” / Smith of Wootton Major
1976 - “Letters from Father Christmas” / The Father Christmas Letters
1977 - “The Silmarillion” / The Silmarillion
1980 - “Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth” / Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth
1983 - “The Monsters And The Critics And Others Esseys”
1983-1996 - “The History of Middle-earth” / The History of Middle-earth in 12 volumes
1997 - Tales from the Perilous Realm
1998 - “Roverandom” / The Roverandom
2007 - “The Children of Hurin” / The Children of Húrin
2009 - “The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun” / The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun
2009 - “The History of The Hobbit” / The History of The Hobbit
2013 - “The Fall of Arthur” / The Fall of Arthur
2014 - “Beowulf”: translation and commentary / Beowulf - A Translation And Commentary.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, also known as Tolkien (January 3, 1892 - September 2, 1973) - English writer, linguist, philologist, best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Tolkien was Oxford Professor of Anglo-Saxon Language (1925–1945) and English Language and Literature (1945–1959). An orthodox Catholic, he was a member of the Inklings literary society with his close friend C.S. Lewis. On March 28, 1972, Tolkien received the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II.

Anyone who knows the language can say “green sun.” Many people can imagine or draw this. But that's not all - although even this may turn out to be much more impressive than all the numerous stories and stories “from life” that are awarded literary prizes.

Tolkien John Ronald Ruel

After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published several works based on his father's notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion.

This book, along with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, forms a single collection of tales, poems, histories, artificial languages ​​and literary essays about the fictional world called Arda and its part of Middle-earth. From 1951 to 1955, Tolkien used the word "legendarium" to refer to much of this collection.

Many authors wrote fantasy works before Tolkien, but due to his great popularity and strong influence on the genre, many call Tolkien the "father" of modern fantasy literature, meaning mainly "high fantasy".

In Russian, the writer’s surname is spelled both “Tolkien” and “Tolkien” in different sources, which often causes disagreements among fans of his work.

To create a Secondary World, where the green sun would be in its place, where we would gain sincere and unconditional Secondary Faith in it - for this, apparently, it is required to apply both thought and work, and in addition, it requires some special skill, similar to the skill elves.
(Quote from “Tree and Leaf”)

Tolkien John Ronald Ruel

In a letter to Richard Jeffery dated December 17, 1972, Tolkien notes: “My last name is always written as Tolkein... I don’t know why - I always pronounce the ending ‘keen’.” Thus, the spelling "Tolkien" more accurately reflects the original pronunciation of the surname. In English, stress is not fixed; some members of the Tolkien family used stress on the last syllable - "kin".

According to surviving information, most of Tolkien's paternal ancestors were artisans. The Tolkien family comes from Saxony (Germany), but from the 18th century the writer’s ancestors settled in England, quickly becoming “native Englishmen.” The surname "Tolkien" is an anglicization of the nickname "Tollkiehn" (German tollkuhn, "recklessly brave"). Grandmother told little Ronald that their family descended from the famous Hohenzollerns.

Tolkien's mother's parents, John and Edith Suffield, lived in Birmingham, where they owned a large store in the city center from 1812.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (now Free State, South Africa). His parents, Arthur Ruel Tolkien (1857–1895), an English bank manager, and Mabel Tolkien (née Suffield) (1870–1904), arrived in South Africa shortly before their son's birth in connection with Arthur's promotion. On February 17, 1894, Arthur and Mabel's second son, Hilary Arthur Ruel, was born.

As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a tarantula, an event that later influenced his work. The sick boy was cared for by a doctor named Thornton Quimby, and is believed to have served as the inspiration for Gandalf the Grey.

I must add something about the many theories and conjectures I have heard or read about the motives and meaning of the story. The main motive was the narrator's desire to try to write a truly long story that could hold the attention of readers for a long time, entertain them, give pleasure or inspire...

Tolkien John Ronald Ruel

At the beginning of 1895, after the death of the father of the family, the Tolkien family returned to England. Left alone with two children, Mabel asks her relatives for help. Returning home was difficult: Tolkien's mother's relatives did not approve of her marriage. After the death of his father from rheumatic fever, the family settled in Sarehole, near Birmingham.

Mabel Tolkien was left alone with two small children in her arms and a very modest income, which was just enough to live on. Trying to find support in life, she immersed herself in religion, converted to Catholicism (this led to a final break with her Anglican relatives) and gave her children an appropriate education, as a result, Tolkien remained a deeply religious person all his life.

Tolkien's strong religious beliefs played a significant role in C.S. Lewis's conversion to Christianity, although, to Tolkien's disappointment, Lewis chose the Anglican faith over the Catholic faith.

As for the various kinds of subtext, this was not the author's intention. The book is neither allegorical nor thematic.
(Preface to The Lord of the Rings)

Tolkien John Ronald Ruel

Mabel also taught her son the basics of Latin, as well as a love of botany, and Tolkien loved to draw landscapes and trees from an early age. He read a lot, and from the very beginning he disliked Stevenson's Treasure Island and the Pied Piper of Hammel by the Brothers Grimm, but he liked Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, stories about Indians, George MacDonald's fantasy works and Andrew's Fairy Book Lang.

Tolkien's mother died of diabetes in 1904, at the age of 34; Before her death, she entrusted the upbringing of her children to Father Francis Morgan, a priest of the Birmingham Church, a strong and extraordinary personality. It was Francis Morgan who developed Tolkien's interest in philology, for which he was later very grateful to him.

Children spend their preschool years outdoors. These two years were enough for Tolkien to write all the descriptions of forests and fields in his works. In 1900, Tolkien entered King Edward's School, where he learned Old English and began to study others - Welsh, Old Norse, Finnish, Gothic.

He showed early linguistic talent, and after studying Old Welsh and Finnish, he began to develop “Elvish” languages. He subsequently studied at St. Philip's School and Oxford Exeter College.

In 1911, while studying at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends - Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Smith and Christopher Wiseman - organized a semi-secret circle called the ChKBO - “ Tea Club and Barrovian Society" (eng. T.C.B.S., Tea Club and Barrovian Society).

This name is due to the fact that friends loved tea, which was sold near the school in the Barrow supermarket, as well as in the school library, although this was prohibited. Even after graduation, members of the Cheka kept in touch, for example, they met in December 1914 at Wiseman's house in London.

Much can be thought out, according to the tastes of lovers of allegories or references to reality. But I have and always have had a sincere dislike of allegory in all its forms, ever since I became old and boring enough to notice it. I much prefer a story, real or fictional, that interacts with the reader's experience in different ways.
(Preface to The Lord of the Rings) Many of the living deserve death, and many of the dead deserve life. Can you give it back to them? Same thing. Then do not rush to condemn him to death. No one, even the wisest of the wise, can see all the intricacies of fate.
(Quote from The Lord of the Rings)

Tolkien John Ronald Ruel

In the summer of 1911, Tolkien visited Switzerland, which he later mentioned in a letter in 1968, noting that Bilbo Baggins's journey through the Misty Mountains was based on the route that Tolkien and twelve companions took from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen. In October of the same year he began his studies at Oxford University, Exeter College.

In 1908 he met Edith Mary Brett, who had a great influence on his work.

Falling in love prevented Tolkien from immediately entering college; besides, Edith was a Protestant and three years older than him. Father Francis took John's word of honor that he would not date Edith until he turned 21, that is, until he came of age, when Father Francis ceased to be his guardian. Tolkien kept his promise by not writing a line to Mary Edith until this age. They didn't even meet or talk.

In the evening, on the same day that Tolkien turned 21, he wrote a letter to Edith, declaring his love and proposing his hand and heart. Edith replied that she had already agreed to marry another person because she decided that Tolkien had long forgotten her. Eventually, she returned the engagement ring to her groom and announced that she was marrying Tolkien. In addition, at his insistence, she converted to Catholicism.

The engagement took place in Birmingham in January 1913, and the wedding took place on March 22, 1916 in the English city of Warwick, in St. Mary's Catholic Church. Their union with Edith Brett turned out to be long and happy. The couple lived together for 56 years and raised 3 sons: John Francis Ruel (1917), Michael Hilary Ruel (1920), Christopher Ruel (1924), and daughter Priscilla Mary Ruel (1929).

In 1914, Tolkien enlisted in the Military Training Corps in order to delay conscription in order to earn his bachelor's degree. In 1915, Tolkien graduated with honors from the university and went to serve as a lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers; John was soon called up to the front and participated in the First World War.

John survived the bloody Battle of the Somme, where two of his best friends from the Cheka (“tea club”) were killed, after which he hated war, fell ill with typhus, and after long-term treatment was sent home with disability.

He devoted the following years to a scientific career: first teaching at the University of Leeds, in 1922 he received the position of professor of Anglo-Saxon language and literature at Oxford University, where he became one of the youngest professors (at 30 years old) and soon earned a reputation as one of the best philologists in world.

At the same time, he began writing the great cycle of myths and legends of Middle-Earth, which would later become The Silmarillion. There were four children in his family, for whom he first composed, narrated and then recorded The Hobbit, which was later published in 1937 by Sir Stanley Unwin.

The Hobbit was a success, and Anuin suggested that Tolkien write a sequel, but work on the trilogy took a long time and the book was completed only in 1954, when Tolkien was already preparing to retire.

The trilogy was published and was a tremendous success, which greatly surprised the author and publisher. Anuin expected to lose significant money, but he personally loved the book and was eager to publish his friend's work. For ease of publication, the book was divided into three parts, so that after the publication and sale of the first part it would become clear whether the rest were worth printing.

After the death of his wife in 1971, Tolkien returned to Oxford.

At the end of 1972 he suffered greatly from indigestion, and an x-ray showed dyspepsia. Doctors prescribe him a diet and demand that he completely avoid drinking wine. On August 28, 1973, Tolkien travels to Bournemouth to visit an old friend, Denis Tolhurst.

On Thursday 30 August, he attends Mrs. Tolhurst's birthday party. I didn’t feel very well, I ate little, but I drank a little champagne. It got worse at night and in the morning Tolkien was taken to a private clinic, where they discovered a bleeding stomach ulcer.

Despite optimistic predictions at first, pleurisy developed by Saturday, and on the night of Sunday, September 2, 1973, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien died at the age of eighty-one.

All works published after 1973, including The Silmarillion, were published by his son Christopher.

Even as a child, John and his friends came up with several languages ​​to communicate with each other. This passion for learning existing languages ​​and constructing new ones remained with him throughout his life.

Tolkien is the creator of several artificial languages: Quenya, or the language of the High Elves; Sindarin is the language of the gray elves. Tolkien knew several dozen languages, and composed new languages, largely guided by the beauty of sound.

He himself said: “No one believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a language consistent with my personal aesthetics could appear natural. However, it is true."

You can read more about Tolkien’s linguistic hobbies in the lecture The Secret Vice (Russian), which he gave at Oxford in 1931.

Works
- Published during his lifetime
* 1925 - “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” (co-authored with E. B. Gordon)
* 1937 - “The Hobbit, or There and Back Again” / The Hobbit or There and Back Again - with this book Tolkien entered literature. The book originally appeared as a work for the family circle - Tolkien began telling the fairy tale about the hobbit to his children. Almost accidentally getting into print, the story about the adventures of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins unexpectedly gained wide popularity among readers of all ages. Already in this fairy tale a huge mythological layer was laid. Now the book is known more as a kind of prologue to The Lord of the Rings.
* 1945 - “Leaf by Niggle” / Leaf by Niggle
* 1945 - “The Ballad of Aotrou and Itroun” / The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun
* 1949 - Farmer Giles of Ham
* 1953 - “The Return of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son” / The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son (play)
* 1954–1955 - “The Lord of the Rings” / The Lord of the Rings. A book that, back in the mid-1970s, was one of the most read and published books in the world. Tolkien's central work. The epic, which tells the story of Middle-earth, was published in 1954-1955 in England and after some time gave birth to a real Tolkien cult, which began in America in the 60s.
1954 - “The Fellowship of the Ring” / The Fellowship of the Ring
1954 - “The Two Towers”
1955 - The Return of the King
* 1962 - “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book” (cycle of poems).
* 1967 - “The Road Goes Ever On” / The Road Goes Ever On (with Donald Swann)
* 1967 - “The Blacksmith of Big Wootton” / Smith of Wootton Major

Published posthumously
* 1977 - “The Silmarillion” / The Silmarillion
* 1980 - “Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth” / Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth
* 1983–1996 - “The History of Middle-earth” / The History of Middle-earth
* 1997 - “Roverandom” / The Roverandom
* 2007 - “The Children of Hurin” / The Children of Hurin
* 2009 - “The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun” / The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun

Tolkien's works had a huge influence on world culture of the 20th and even 21st centuries. They have been repeatedly adapted for cinema, animation, audio plays, theater stage, and computer games. Concept albums, illustrations, and comics were created based on them. A large number of imitations of Tolkien’s books, their continuations or antitheses have been created in literature.

Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was filmed several times, first in the form of animated films by Ralph Bakshi (1978) and Rankin/Bass (1980), and in 2001–2003 Peter Jackson directed three big-budget Lord of the Rings blockbusters, which received numerous awards and grossed more than 2 billion dollars.

There is also a film adaptation of The Hobbit (1977). A number of computer games are based on Tolkien’s books and their film adaptations, the most famous of which are the strategy Battle for Middle-Earth and the MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online. Musical groups such as Blind Guardian, Battlelore, Summoning have composed many songs about characters and events from Tolkien's books.

Many famous fantasy writers admit that they turned to this genre under the influence of Tolkien’s epic, for example Robert Jordan, Nick Perumov, Terry Brooks, Robert Salvatore. Professor Ursula Le Guin, a contemporary of the Professor, notes the poetry and rhythm of his style.

However, many famous authors criticize Tolkien. In particular, China Miéville, while acknowledging that “The Lord of the Rings is undoubtedly the most influential genre of fantasy,” calls it “rural, conservative, anti-modern, terribly Christian and anti-intellectual.”

Objects named after Tolkien
* asteroid (2675) Tolkien;
* sea crustacean Leucothoe tolkieni from the system of underwater ridges Nazca and Sala y Gomez (Pacific Ocean);
* rove beetle Gabrius tolkieni Schillhammer, 1997 (Lives in Nepal (Khandbari, Induwa Khola Valley));
* genus of fossil trilobites Tolkienia from the family Acastidae (Phacopida).

The names of geographical features of Middle-earth and the names of characters appearing in Tolkien's works are named after many real geographical features and animals.

Prizes and awards
* 1957, International Fantasy Award in the Fiction category for The Lord of the Rings (1955)
* 1974, Hugo Award. Gandalf Award “Grand Master of Fantasy”
* 1978, Locus Award in the Fantasy Novel category for The Silmarillion (1977)
* 1978, Hugo Award. Gandalf Award "Book-Length Fantasy" for The Silmarillion (1977)
* 1979, Balrog Awards. Professional Achievement
* 1981, Balrog Awards in the Collection/Anthology category for “Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth” (1980)
* 1981, Mythopoeic Awards in the Mythopoetic Fantasy Award category for Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien (1980)
* 1989, Mythopoeic Awards in the category "Mythopoetic Award for Research into the Work of the Inklings" for "The Return of the Shadow (The History of The Lord of the Rings. Part I)" (1988)
* 1990, Great Ring in the category "Large Form (translation)" for "The Two Towers" (1954)
* 1991, Great Ring in the category “Large Form (Translation)” for “The Lord of the Rings” (1955)
* 2000, Mythopoeic Awards in the category “Mythopoetic Award for Research into the Work of the Inklings” for “Roverandom” (1998)
* 2002, Deutscher Phantastik Preis in the category "Best Author"
* 2003, Mythopoeic Awards in the category "Mythopoetic Award for Research into the Work of the Inklings" for "Beowulf and the Critics" (2002)
* 2009, Mythopoeic Awards in the category "Mythopoetic Award for Research into the Work of the Inklings" for "The History of The Hobbit" (2007)
* 2009, Prometheus Awards. Inducted into the Hall of Fame for The Lord of the Rings (1955)

Evil uses enormous forces and with constant success - but only in vain; it only prepares the soil on which unexpected goodness will sprout. This is how it happens in general; this is how it happens in our own lives...

The author of The Lord of the Rings, John Tolkien, is a talented writer who became the progenitor of a new genre in the world of literature and influenced writers of subsequent years. It is not surprising that modern fantasy is built on the archetypes invented by John. The master of the pen was imitated by Christopher Paolini, Terry Brooks and other authors of works.

Childhood and youth

Few people know that in fact John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in the African town of Bloemfontein, which until 1902 was the capital of the Orange Republic. His father Arthur Tolkien, a bank manager, and his pregnant wife Mabel Suffield moved to this sunny place because of a promotion, and on February 17, 1894, the lovers had a second son, Hilary.

It is known that Tolkien’s nationality is determined by German blood - the writer’s distant relatives came from Lower Saxony, and John’s surname, according to the writer himself, comes from the word “tollkühn”, which translates as “recklessly brave”. According to the surviving information, most of John's ancestors were artisans, while the writer's great-great-grandfather was the owner of a bookstore, and his son sold fabrics and stockings.

Tolkien's childhood was uneventful, but the writer often recalled an incident that happened to him in early childhood. One day, while walking in the garden under the scorching sun, the boy stepped on a tarantula, and it immediately bit little John. The child rushed around the street in a panic until the nanny caught him and sucked the poison out of the wound.

John used to say that that event did not leave terrible memories of eight-legged creatures and he was not overcome by arachnophobia. But, nevertheless, creepy spiders are often found in his numerous works and pose a danger to fairy-tale creatures.

When John was 4 years old, he went with Mabel and his younger brother to visit relatives in England. But while the mother and sons were admiring the British landscapes, a misfortune happened in Bloemfontein: the main breadwinner in the family died of rheumatic fever, leaving his wife and children without a livelihood.

It so happened that the widow and the boys settled in Sayrehole, the homeland of her ancestors. But Mabel’s parents greeted her inhospitably, because at one time Tolkien’s grandparents did not approve of the marriage of their daughter and an English banker.

The mother of John and Hilary, struggling to make ends meet, did everything she could. The woman made a bold and eccentric decision for that time - she converted to Catholicism, which was a blatant act for England of those times, which did not accept such a branch of Christianity. This allowed the Baptist relatives to renounce Mabel once and for all.

Suffield was spinning like a squirrel in a wheel. She herself taught the children to read and write, and John was known as a diligent student: by the age of four, the boy learned to read and devoured the works of the classics one after another. Tolkien's favorites were George MacDonald, but the future writer did not like the works of the Brothers Grimm.

In 1904, Mabel died of diabetes, and the boys remained in the care of her spiritual mentor Francis Morgan, who served as a priest of the Birmingham church and was fond of philology. In his free time, Tolkien enjoyed painting landscapes, studying botany and ancient languages ​​- Welsh, Old Norse, Finnish and Gothic, thereby demonstrating linguistic talent. When John was 8 years old, the boy entered King Edward's School.

In 1911, the talented young man organized a secret “Tea Club” and “Barrovian Society” with his comrades Rob, Geoffrey and Christopher. The fact is that the guys loved tea, which was sold illegally in the school and library. In the autumn of the same year, John continued his studies; his choice fell on the prestigious Oxford University, where the gifted guy entered without much difficulty.

Literature

It so happened that after graduating from university, John went to serve in the army: in 1914, the guy expressed a desire to become a participant in the First World War. The young man participated in bloody battles and even survived the Battle of the Somme, in which he lost two comrades, because of which Tolkien’s hatred of military action haunted him for the rest of his life.

John returned from the front as an invalid and began earning money by teaching, then climbed the career ladder, and at the age of 30 received the position of professor of Anglo-Saxon language and literature. Of course, John Tolkien was a talented philologist. Later, he said that he invented fairy-tale worlds only so that the fictional language, corresponding to his personal aesthetics, seemed natural.

At the same time, a man who was reputed to be the best linguist at Oxford University took up an inkwell and a pen and came up with his own world, the beginning of which was laid while still at school. Thus, the writer created a collection of myths and legends, called “Middle-earth,” but later became “The Silmarillion” (the cycle was released by the writer’s son in 1977).

Further, on September 21, 1937, Tolkien delighted fantasy fans with the book “The Hobbit, or There and Back Again.” It is noteworthy that John invented this work for his young children, so that in the family circle he could tell his offspring about the brave adventures of Bilbo Baggins and the wise wizard Gandalf, owner of one of the rings of power. But this fairy tale accidentally found its way into print and gained wild popularity among readers of all ages.

In 1945, Tolkien presented to the public the story "Niggle's Leaf", imbued with religious allegories, and in 1949 the humorous fairy tale "Farmer Giles of Ham" was published. Six years later, Tolkien begins working on the epic novel “The Lord of the Rings,” which is a continuation of the tales about the adventures of a brave hobbit and a powerful wizard in the wonderful world of Middle-earth.

John's manuscript turned out to be voluminous, so the publishing house decided to divide the book into three parts - “The Fellowship of the Ring” (1954), “The Two Towers” ​​(1954) and “The Return of the King” (1955). The book became so famous that a Tolkien “boom” began in the United States; American residents swept John’s book works off store shelves.

In the 1960s, the cult of Tolkien began in the homeland of jazz, which brought John recognition and fame; it was even said that it was time to award the master the Nobel Prize in Literature. However, unfortunately, this award bypassed Tolkien.

John then wrote a series of poems, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Poems from the Scarlet Book (1962), The Road Goes Far and Away (1967), and the short story The Blacksmith of Great Wootton (1967).

The remaining manuscripts, for example “Tales of the Fairyland” (1997), “The Children of Hurin” (2007), “The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun” (2009) were published posthumously by John’s son Christopher, who later also became a writer who created “The History of Middle-earth” ”, where he analyzed his father’s unpublished works (the cycle includes the volumes “The Book of Lost Tales”, “The Structure of Middle-earth”, “The Ring of Morgoth” and others).

World of Middle-earth

It is worth noting that Tolkien’s works contain biblical stories, and the books themselves are the real world, passed through the prism of literary allegories, for example, there is a parallel between Frodo and, which is visible to the naked eye.

Rumor has it that John had dreams about the Flood from an early age and was interested in the history of Atlantis, books and epic poems, including trying to translate the story of Beowulf. Therefore, the creation of Middle-earth is not an accident caused by creative inspiration, but a true pattern.

The Middle World (as his son calls part of Tolkien’s fictional universe) is what John Ruel devoted his entire life to. Middle-earth is the setting for some of the writer's works, where events from The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and partly The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales develop.

It is noteworthy that the world, immersing every reader in magical adventures and the confrontation between good and evil, is thought out to the smallest detail. John not only meticulously described the territory and the races inhabiting it, but also drew several maps that cover part of the fictional space (not all of them made it to publication).

He also came up with a chronology of events before the Solar Years, which begin from the Velian era and end with the last battle that concludes the history of Arda - Dagor Dagorath. In the books themselves, the writer calls the component of Arda, located in the east and representing the habitat of mortals, Middle-earth.

Indeed, John said more than once that the continent was on our planet. True, it existed in the distant past and was a brief episode in the history of the Earth. However, the author spoke of Middle-earth as a secondary reality and a different level of imagination.

The area is divided by the Misty Mountains, to the north is the Gulf of Forokhel, surrounded by blue mountains, and to the south is the stronghold of the corsairs. Middle-earth also includes the state of Gondor, the region of Mordor, the country of Harad, etc.

The continent invented by Tolkien is inhabited by both people and keen-sighted elves, hardworking gnomes, cunning hobbits, giant ents and other fairy-tale creatures who speak the languages ​​\u200b\u200bQuenya, Sindarin and Khuzdul created by the writer.

As for flora and fauna, the fictional world is inhabited by ordinary animals; book characters often ride horses and ponies. And among the plants in Middle-earth, wheat, tobacco, rye, root crops grow, and grapes are also cultivated.

Personal life

Mabel passed on her love of God to her son, so John Tolkien remained a devout Catholic all his life, knowing all church rituals. As for politics, the writer was a traditionalist and sometimes advocated the collapse of Great Britain, and also disliked industrialization, preferring a simple, measured rural life.

From John's biography it is known that he was an exemplary family man. In 1908, the fantasy author met Edith Brett, who at that time was an orphan and lived in a boarding school. The lovers often sat in a cafe, looked at the sidewalk from the balcony and amused themselves by throwing sugar cubes at passers-by.

But the priest Francis Morgan did not like the relationship between John and Edith: the guardian believed that such a pastime interfered with his studies, and besides, the girl professed a different religion (Brett was a Protestant, but converted to Catholicism for the sake of marriage). Morgan set a condition for John - he can count on the blessing only when he turns 21.

Edith thought that Tolkien had forgotten her, and even managed to accept a marriage proposal from another suitor, but as soon as John became an adult, he did not hesitate to write Brett a letter in which he confessed his feelings.

Thus, on March 22, 1916, the young people had a wedding in Warwick. The happy marriage, which lasted 56 years, produced four children: John, Michael, Christopher and daughter Priscilla.

Death

Edith Tolkien died at the age of 82, and John survived his wife by a year and eight months. The great writer died on September 2, 1973 from a bleeding ulcer. The writer was buried in the same grave with Edith in Wolvercote Cemetery.

It is worth saying that John had a tremendous influence on the culture of subsequent years. Based on John's manuscripts, board and computer games, plays, musical compositions, animations and feature films were invented. The most popular film trilogy is “The Lord of the Rings”, where the main roles were played by other actors.

Quotes

• "No man can judge his own holiness"
• "Goblins are not evil, they just have a high level of corruption"
• “The true story of a writer is contained in his books, and not in the facts of his biography”
• “When you write a complex story, you must immediately draw a map - then it will be too late”
• “Don’t brush aside grandmother’s tales, because only in them is preserved knowledge forgotten by those who considered themselves wise”

Bibliography

• 1925 – “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”
• 1937 – “The Hobbit, or There and Back Again”
• 1945 – “Leaf by Niggle”
• 1945 – “The Ballad of Aotru and Itrun”
• 1949 – “Farmer Giles of Ham”
• 1953 – “The Return of Beorchthnoth, son of Beorchthelm”
• 1954–1955 – “The Lord of the Rings”
• 1962 – “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Poems from the Scarlet Book”
• 1967 – “The road goes on and on”
• 1967 – “The Blacksmith of Greater Wootton”

Books published posthumously:

• 1976 - “Letters from Father Christmas”
• 1977 - “The Silmarillion”
• 1998 - “Roverandom”
• 2007 - “Children of Hurin”
• 2009 - “The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun”
• 2013 - “The Fall of Arthur”
• 2015 - “The Story of Kullervo”
• 2017 - “The Tale of Beren and Luthien”

John Tolkien is a famous English writer and philologist. One of the founders of modern fantasy. Author of the novels "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again", "The Lord of the Rings", "The Silmarillion".

Biography of the writer

John Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein in the Orange Republic. Now this is the territory of South Africa. In 1892. He worked at Pembroke College and Oxford University. He taught Anglo-Saxon language. He held the position of professor. He was a researcher of English language and literature. Together with his friend and writer Clive Lewis, he was a member of the informal literary society "Inklings", which valued new works of fiction and was especially fond of fantasy.

His most famous novels are The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. His son Christopher published the last one after his father’s death. These three novels form a collection of works about the fictional world of Middle-earth. John Tolkien himself united his novels with the word “legendarium”. This is a literary collection of fairy tales or legends.

It is worth noting that before Tolkien, many authors wrote fantasy novels. However, his popularity was so great, and his novels had such an influence on the development of the entire genre, that today Tolkien is officially called the father of fantasy. Speaking primarily about high fantasy.

In the list of the greatest writers of the 20th century, according to the authoritative British newspaper The Times, John Tolkien ranks sixth.

At war

The English writer did not remain aloof from the key military conflicts of the 20th century. Although in 1914 he literally shocked his relatives by not immediately enlisting as a volunteer for the front. He first decided to get a degree. Only after this did John R.R. Tolkien enter the army with the rank of second lieutenant.

In 1916, as part of the 11th Expeditionary Battalion, he arrived in France. He served as a signalman in northern France, near the Somme River. In these places he took a direct part in the battle on the Thiepval ridge. Stormed the Swabian redoubt.

At the end of 1916, he fell ill with trench fever, or as it is also called Volyn fever. Its carriers were lice that bred in British dugouts at that time. In November 16th he was commissioned and sent to England.

During World War II he was considered for a position as a codebreaker. He even received training at the London headquarters of the Government Communications Centre. However, in the end, the government declared that it did not need his services. So he never served again.

Death of Tolkien

By the middle of the 20th century, John Tolkien, whose books sold in large quantities, was a famous and successful writer. In 1971 he lost his wife and returned to Oxford.

A little over a year later, doctors diagnosed him with dyspepsia, a disorder of the normal functioning of the stomach. The disease was accompanied by constant indigestion. Doctors prescribed him a strict diet and forbade him to drink wine.

In the summer of 1973 he was visiting friends in Bournemouth. On August 30, at Mrs. Tolhurst's birthday party, he hardly ate, but drank some champagne. Late in the evening I felt bad. By morning he was hospitalized. Doctors diagnosed him with a stomach ulcer. A few days later pleurisy developed.

"The Hobbit, or There and Back Again"

Tolkien's very first famous novel about the world of Middle-earth, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, was published in 1937. It tells the fascinating story of the journey of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. He sets off on his journey after meeting the powerful wizard Gandalf. The goal of his campaign is the treasures that are stored on the Lonely Mountain, guarded by the terrible dragon Smaug.

Initially, Tolkien wrote this book with only one purpose - to entertain his own children. However, the manuscript of this fascinating novel catches the eye first of his friends and relatives, and then of British publishers. The latter immediately became interested in the new original work and asked the author to finish the manuscript and provide it with illustrations. Which is what John Tolkien did. The Hobbit first appeared on bookstore shelves in the fall of 1937.

This novel was the first about the Middle-earth universe, which the author developed over several decades. The reviews were so positive from both critics and readers that the novel brought fame and profit to the author.

In their reviews, readers noted that for many this novel is in first place in their personal reading rating, that it is not like any other work, despite its large volume, everyone should read it.

"Lord of the Rings"

John Tolkien, whose biography was closely connected with the fantasy genre, released his new novel “The Lord of the Rings” in 1954. This is already a whole epic, which the publishers had to divide into several independent parts. The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.

The main character of the previous work, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, retires. He leaves his nephew Frodo a magic ring that can make anyone who possesses it invisible. The powerful magician Gandalf appears again in the story, who initiates Frodo into all the secrets of this ring. It turns out that this is the Ring of Omnipotence, created by the dark lord of Middle-earth himself, Sauron, who lives in Mordor. He is the enemy of all free peoples, which includes hobbits. At the same time, the Ring of Omnipotence has its own will, capable of enslaving its owner or extending his life. With its help, Sauron hopes to subjugate all other magic rings and conquer power in Mordor.

There is only one way to prevent this - to destroy the ring. This can only be done in the place where it was forged, in the mouth of the Fire Mountain. Frodo sets off on a dangerous journey.

"The Silmarillion"

The Silmarillion was published after Tolkien's death. The book was published by his son Christopher.

The new work is, in fact, a collection of legends and myths of Middle-earth, describing the history of this fictional Universe from the very beginning of time. "The Silmarillion" tells about the events that occurred from the creation of the world during the Middle Ages.

For example, the first part is called Ainulindale. It tells how the Universe of Middle-earth was born. It turns out that music played a key role in this. This part of the novel is framed as a legend written by the elf Rumila.

The second part describes the characteristics of the main divine beings of this world. One of the parts is dedicated to the founding and fall of one of the largest states in Middle-earth, Numenor.

TOLKEIN, JOHN RONALD RUEL(Tolkien) (1892–1973), English writer, doctor of literature, artist, professor, linguist. One of the creators of the Oxford English Dictionary. Author of the tale Hobbit(1937), novel Lord of the Rings(1954), mythological epic The Silmarillion (1977).

Father - Arthur Ruel Tolkien, a bank employee from Birmingham, moved to South Africa in search of happiness. Mother: Mabel Suffield. In January 1892 they had a boy.

Tolkien created hobbits - "short ones" - charming, captivatingly reliable creatures, similar to children. Combining perseverance and frivolity, curiosity and childish laziness, incredible ingenuity with simplicity, cunning and gullibility, courage and courage with the ability to avoid trouble.

First of all, it is the hobbits who give such authenticity to Tolkien’s world.

On February 17, 1894, Mabel Suffield gave birth to her second son. The local heat had a bad effect on the children's health. Therefore, in November 1894, Mabel took her sons to England.

By the age of four, thanks to the efforts of his mother, baby John could already read and even write his first letters.

In February 1896, Tolkien's father began bleeding heavily and died suddenly. Mabel Suffield took care of all the children. She received a good education. She spoke French and German, knew Latin, was an excellent painter, and played the piano professionally. She passed on all her knowledge and skills to her children.

His grandfather John Suffield, who was proud of his lineage of skilled engravers, also had a great influence on the initial formation of John’s personality. John's mother and grandfather strongly supported John's early interest in Latin and Greek.

In 1896, Mabel and her children moved from Birmingham to the village of Sarehole. It was in the vicinity of Sarehole that Tolkien became interested in the world of trees, seeking to discern their secrets. It is no coincidence that unforgettable, most interesting trees appear in Tolkien’s works. And the mighty giants of Listven amaze readers in his trilogy - Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien is no less passionate about elves and dragons. Dragons and elves will be the main characters in the first fairy tale written by Ronald, at the age of seven.

In 1904, when John was barely twelve years old, his mother died of diabetes. Their distant relative, a priest, Father Francis, becomes the children's guardian. The brothers move back to Birmingham. Feeling longing for free hills, fields and beloved trees, John is looking for new affections and spiritual support. He becomes more and more interested in drawing, revealing extraordinary abilities. By the age of fifteen, he amazes school teachers with an obsession with philology. He's reading an Old English poem Beowulf, returns to medieval tales of knights Round table (cm. ARTHUR'S LEGENDS). Soon he independently begins to study the Old Icelandic language, then gets to German books on philology.

The joy of learning ancient languages ​​fascinates him so much that he even invents his own language, “Nevbosh,” that is, “new nonsense,” which he creates in collaboration with his cousin Mary. Writing funny limericks becomes an exciting pastime for young people and at the same time introduces them to such pioneers of English absurdism as Edward Lear, Hilaire Belok and Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Continuing to study Old English, Old Germanic, and a little later Old Finnish, Icelandic and Gothic, John “absorbs in immeasurable quantities” their tales and legends.

At sixteen, John met Edith Bratt, his first and last love. Five years later they got married and lived a long life, giving birth to three sons and a daughter. But first, they faced five years of difficult trials: John’s unsuccessful attempt to enter Oxford University, Father Francis’s categorical rejection of Edith, the horrors of the First World War, typhus, which John Ronald suffered from twice.

In April 1910, Tolkien watched a play at the Birmingham Theater Peter Pan based on the play by James Barrie. “It’s indescribable, but I won’t forget it as long as I live,” John wrote.

Still, luck smiled on John. After his second attempt at the Oxford exams in 1910, Tolkien learned that he had been given a scholarship to Exeter College. And thanks to the exit scholarship received from King Edward's School, and additional funds allocated by Father Francis, Ronald could already afford to go to Oxford.

During his last summer vacation, John visited Switzerland. He will write in his diary. “Once we went on a long hike with guides to the Aletsch glacier, and there I almost died...” Before returning to England, Tolkien bought several postcards. One of them depicted an old man with a white beard, wearing a round wide-brimmed hat and a long cloak. The old man was talking to a white fawn. Many years later, when Tolkien found a postcard at the bottom of one of his desk drawers, he wrote down: “Prototype of Gandalf.” This is how one of the most famous heroes first appeared in John’s imagination. Lord of the Rings.

Upon entering Oxford, Tolkien meets the famous self-taught professor Joe Wright. He strongly advises the aspiring linguist to “take up the Celtic language seriously.” Ronald's passion for theater intensifies. He plays in the play by R. Sheridan Rivals role of Mrs. Malaprop. By the time he came of age, he wrote a play himself - Detective, cook and suffragette for home theater. Tolkien's theatrical experiences turned out to be not only useful for him, but also necessary.

In 1914, when the First World War begins, Tolkien rushes to complete his degree at Oxford so he can volunteer for the army. At the same time he enrolls in courses for radio operators and communications operators. In July 1915, he passed the English language and literature exam for a bachelor's degree ahead of schedule and received first-class honors. After undergoing military training in Bedford, he was awarded the rank of sub-lieutenant and assigned to serve in the regiment of Lancashire Fusiliers. In March 1916, Tolkien got married, and already on July 14, 1916 he went into his first battle.

He was destined to find himself at the center of a meat grinder on the Somme River, where tens of thousands of his compatriots perished. Having known all the “horrors and abominations of the monstrous massacre,” John began to hate both the war and the “inspirers of the terrible massacres...”. At the same time, he retained admiration for his comrades in arms. Later he would write in his diary: “perhaps without the soldiers with whom I fought, the country of the Hobbitan would not have existed. And without Hobbits there would be no Hobbits Lord of the Rings" Death spared John, but he was overtaken by another terrible scourge - “trench fever” - typhus, which claimed more lives in the First World War than bullets and shells. Tolkien suffered from it twice. From the hospital in Le Touquet he was sent by ship to England.

In the rare hours when John’s terrible illness left him, he conceived and began to write the first drafts of his fantastic epic - The Silmarillion, a tale of three magical rings of omnipotent power.

In 1918 the war ends. John and his family move to Oxford. It is allowed to be compiled Universal Dictionary of the New English Language. Here is a review from a friend of the writer, linguist Clive Stiles Lewis: “he (Tolkien) visited the inside of language. For he had a unique ability to feel both the language of poetry and the poetry of language.”

In 1924 he was confirmed with the rank of professor, and in 1925 he was awarded the chair of Anglo-Saxon language at Oxford. At the same time, he continues to work on The Silmarillion, creating a new incredible world. A peculiar other dimension with its own history and geography, phenomenal animals and plants, real and surreal creatures.

While working on the dictionary, Tolkien had the opportunity to think about the composition and appearance of tens of thousands of words that absorbed Celtic origins, Latin, Scandinavian, Old German and Old French influences. This work further stimulated his gift as an artist, helping to unite different categories of living beings and different times and spaces into his Tolkienesque world. At the same time, Tolkien did not lose his “literary soul”. His scientific works were permeated with the figurativeness of the writer's thinking.

He also illustrated many of his fairy tales, and especially loved to depict humanized trees. A special place is occupied by Santa Claus's letters to children, illustrated by him. The letter was specially written in the “shaky” handwriting of Santa Claus, “who had just escaped from a terrible snowstorm.”

Tolkien's most famous books are inextricably linked. Hobbit And Lord of the Rings were written, in total, from 1925 to 1949. The main character of the first story Hobbit Bilbo Baggins has the same opportunities for self-expression in a vast and complex world as a child explorer. Bilbo constantly takes risks to get out of threatening adventures, he must be resourceful and brave all the time. And one more circumstance. Hobbits are a free people, there are no leaders in the Hobbits, and Hobbits get along just fine without them.

But Hobbit was just a prelude to Tolkien's great other world. Key to looking into other dimensions and warning. Serious cause for thought. The action-packed tale repeatedly hints at a world of far more significant improbabilities lurking behind it. Two of the most mysterious characters are bridges to the immeasurable future Hobbit- the magician Gandalf and a creature named Gollum. Hobbit was published on September 21, 1937. The first edition was sold out by Christmas.

The tale receives the New York Herald Tribune award for best book of the year. Hobbit becomes a bestseller. Then came Lord of the Rings.

This epic novel has become an elixir of love for life for tens of millions of people, a road into the unknowable, paradoxical proof that it is the thirst for knowledge of miracles that moves the worlds.

Nothing in Tolkien's novel is accidental. Be it the snarled faces that once flashed on the canvases of Bosch and Salvador Dali or in the works of Hoffmann and Gogol. So the names of the elves came from the language of the former Celtic population of the Welsh peninsula. Dwarves and magicians are named, as the Scandinavian sagas suggested, people are called by names from the Irish heroic epic. Tolkien's own ideas of fantastic creatures have the basis of “folk poetic imagination”.

Time to work on Lord of the Rings coincided with the Second World War. Undoubtedly, all the experiences and hopes, doubts and aspirations of the author at that time could not help but be reflected in the life of even his other existence.

One of the main advantages of his novel is the prophetic warning about the mortal danger lurking in unlimited Power. Only the unity of the most courageous and wise champions of goodness and reason, capable of stopping the gravediggers of the joy of being, can resist this.

First two volumes Lord of the Rings published in 1954. The third volume was published in 1955. “This book is like a bolt from the blue,” exclaimed the famous writer C.S. Lewis. “For the very history of the novel-history, dating back to the times of Odysseus, this is not a return, but progress, moreover, revolution, the conquest of new territory.” The novel was translated into many languages ​​of the world and first sold a million copies, and today it has surpassed the twenty million mark. The book has become a cult among young people in many countries.

Troops of Tolkienists, dressed in knightly armor, still organize games, tournaments and “walks of honor and valor” in the USA, England, Canada, and New Zealand to this day.

Tolkien's works first began to appear in Russia in the mid-1970s. Today, the number of Russian fans of his work is not inferior to the number of adherents of Tolkien’s world in other countries.

Came to world screens The Fellowship of the Ring And Two Strongholds directed by Peter Jackson (filmed in New Zealand), and a new wave of interest in the novel arose among young and very young people Lord of the Rings.

The last tale Tolkien wrote in 1965 is called Blacksmith of Greater Wootton.

In his final years, Tolkien was surrounded by universal acclaim. In June 1972, he received the title of Doctor of Letters from Oxford University, and in 1973, at Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth awarded the writer the Order of the British Empire, second class.

Aleksandr Kuznetsov