Biographie Tolkien (document en anglais)

J.R.R Tolkien

I. Biography

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer, philologer and professor, really catholic. He was born the third of January 1892 in Boemfontein in South Africa. His parents, Arthur Reuel Tolkien, a bank manager, and Mabel Suffield, went in South Africa in 1890 after an Arthur’s promotion. Tokien’s father died the 15 of February 1896, so John Ronald, his mother and his young brother called Hilary returned to England. Then, in 1904, his mother died. First, a catholic priest took care of them, Father Francis Morgan. Later, in 1905, They were under the care of his aunt.

In 1914, he got married with Edith Bratt. Edith Bratt was a childhood friend who John Ronald loved since a long time but his childhood priest forbidden him to see her. After, he joined up the army for the First World War. He was repatriate in 1917 because he was sick. He was graduated in Oxford in 1919 and then, in 1924, he started his professor career and took his retirement in 1959. He had fours child, Christopher, Michael, Priscilla and John.

He started to be well-known with conference about the epic poem Beowulf in 1936 and with the conference about fairy-stories in 1939. He published his first novel in 1937, There and back again or The Hobbit. It's his first book in Middle-Earth, the world he created. He began to imagine this fantastic world in 1910 after he had invented elfish languages. Everything he had written during his life was published after his dead by his son Christopher. In 1954, he published The Lords of the Rings, a huge success in all the world after had worked on this story during 14 years (since 1940). After his dead, Christopher published the collection The Silmarillon which assemble all Tolkien's writing about Middle-Earth and which wasn’t published during his life.

Tolkien’s wife, Edith Bratt, died the 29 of September 1971. On her tomb, he wrote, after her name, Luthen. The 2 of September 1973, Tolkien died. He had asked the name Beren was written on his tomb. Actually, Luthen and Beren are two peoples from the Middle Earth (the mystic world invented by Tolkien) and they are the first couple elfish-human created by Tolkien. Edith and John are buried in the Wolvercote’s cemetery in Oxford.

Conclusion :

Today, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is always an inspiration source for heroic-fantasy writers particularly The Lord of Rings, which is a model for this kind.

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