Tolkien: Greatest Writer of the 20

th
Century












Language Arts
6th grade
April 12, 2011






Works Consulted
Bram, Leon and Norma Dickey. Tolkien, John Ronald Reul. Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia.
U.S.A; Rand McNally Company, 1986.
Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977.
Grotto-Kurska, Daniel. J.R.R.Tolkien: Architect of Middle Earth. Philadelphia: Running Press, 1976.
J.R.R.Tolkien. Wikipedia. http://www.wikipedia.com/ Accessed Mar. 15, 2011.
List of Best-Selling Books. Wikipedia. http://www.wikipedia.com/ Accessed May. 3, 2012
J.R.R.Tolkien and the Birth of the Lord of the Rings. Delta Entertainment, 2004. DVD.
J.R.R.Tolkien. The Tolkien Estate. http://www.tolkienestate.com/. Accessed Feb.7, 2011.
J.R.R.Tolkien. Tolkien-Online. http://www.Tolkien-online.com/. Accessed Feb. 7, 2011.
Shorto, Russell. J.R.R.Tolkien Man of Fantasy. New York: The Kipling Press, 1988.














J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the greatest writers in history. He was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein,
South Africa. He was named John, after his grandfather, Ronald, just because his mother liked it, and Reuel,
because it was Arthurs middle name, but his family called him Ronald most of the time. His British parents,
Arthur and Mabel Tolkien, had immigrated to the country after Arthurs business, a piano company, had failed.
He became a banker in Africa because of all the wealth there. When Ronald was three years old, the family
moved back to England. His father died soon after.
While Ronald attended school, he became interested in language and the surrounding studies. So a teacher
encouraged him to focus on English, because he was very interested in Old and Middle English and other
Germanic languages. In his later years in Oxford, he started a club, Tea Club and Barrovian Society, otherwise
known as T.C.B.S. There they would share and discuss literature. When he later went to Oxford University
English School, he came across an Anglo-Saxon poem; Hail Earendel, brightest of angels/above middle-earth
sent unto men. Those words would inspire him in later years.
When Ronald turned sixteen, he met and fell in love with a girl named Edith Bratt. She was an orphan at the
boarding house where Tolkien was staying. They went on bike rides and had tea together. This went on until
one day, Father Frances, the guardian of Tolkien since his mother had died, found out and prohibited Tolkien
from meeting, talking, or writing to Edeth until he was twenty-one. On his 21
st
birthday, he immediately wrote
a letter to her asking if she would get engaged to him. She replied that she had gotten engaged to another
man, because she felt that he had forgotten her. Five days later he met her and by the end of the day, she
agreed to marry Tolkien. On March 22, 1916, they married.
In 1915, Tolkien joined World War I as a 2
nd
Lieutenant Battalion Signaling Officer in the 11
th
Lancashire
Fusiliers. While he was at war, he caught Trench Fever, a disease carried by lice which were common in
dugouts. When his symptoms failed to improve, he was taken back to England. There, in a cottage at Great
Haywood, Staffordshire, he started writing The Book of Lost Tales. During this time Edeth had a baby; John
Francis Reuel Tolkien. Later she would have Michael Hillary Reuel Tolkien, then Christopher Reuel Tolkien,
then finally Pricilla Mary Ann Reuel Tolkien.
In 1918, Tolkien joined the effort of making the Oxford English Dictionary. His job was to work on the
etymology and history of words in Germanic origin beginning with W. In the summer of 1920, Tolkien applied
for the post of Reader in English Language at Leeds University. While there, he wrote a Middle English
Dictionary and the definite edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with the help of E.V. Gordon. After
being offered the position of Rawlinson & Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, he moved
back to Oxford. During his time at 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford, he wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes
of the Lord of the Rings. He also started a weekly group where C.S. Lewis, W.H. Lewis, Charles Williams, and
others met at the Eagle and Child Pub to discuss literature, poetry, and works they were writing. They were
known as the Inklings.
During this time through 1973, he had been receiving a steady literary fame. Because of some many fans
calling him 24/7, he had his phone number taken out of the public phone directory. Tolkien and Edeth finally
moved to Bournemouth where they stayed until Edeth died in 1971.
After recovering from the shock of her death, he revisited friends and family and then went to see his
brother, Hillary Tolkien. He died shortly after in a nursing home in Bournemouth. His works The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings volumes are the 4
th
and 3
rd
best-selling books of all time, just behind Le Petit Prince
(2
nd
) and A Tale of Two Cities (1
st
).
The idea for The Hobbit started when he was grading papers at a college when he found a blank page. On
it he scribbled this sentence; In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Thus began his work that led to the
Lord of the Rings.
Before this Tolkien had written two poems; One about a dragon that goes to Bimble Bay and encounters
Miss Biggins, and the other about a slimy creature with pale, luminous eyes, that lives under a cave floor.
These ideas were to be used in The Hobbit.
On the 21 of September 1937, George Allen&Unwin, Ltd. In London published one thousand five hundred
copies of the first edition of The Hobbit. The books were so popular that a reprinting was needed by
December. The book might have not been published unless Elaine Griffiths, a student of Tolkien, was visited by
Susan Dagnall. Susan was a staff member for Allen&Unwin publishing. No one knows which way she got the
book. She was either lent The Hobbit, or Elaine suggested she ask to borrow it from Tolkien. Impressed,
Susan took it to Stanley Unwin. Because of his tight schedule, he asked ten year old son to write a short review
of it for him. It was because of that review that the book was published. Tolkien later revise it into 2
nd
and 3
rd

editions with changes such as Gollum willingly betting his ring in the 1
st
edition, to making Bilbo find the ring
and Gollum being much more aggressive towards Bilbo.
On December 1937, Stanley Unwin asked Tolkien to write a sequel for The Hobbit because of the huge
success of The Hobbit. Twelve years later The Lord of the Rings was finished and still wasnt fully published
until 1955. The Lord of the Rings has now been translated into thirty-eight languages. After The Lord of the
Rings was released, a craze swept across many countries. Many reviews varied his works from the worst
books ever, to the books of the century. One 1966 newspaper wrote; At Yale the trilogy is selling faster that
William Goldings The Lord of the Flies at its crest. At Harvard its outpacing J.D. Salingers The Catcher in the
Rye. Tolkien societies popped up around America, the U.K., Sweden, Denmark, and so many more. In
America Tolkien societies, people would dress up as characters from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings,
subway walls were written with saying such as Frodo Lives, pins were made saying Gandalf for President.
Since then audio dramas have been made, movies such as Peter Jacksons Academy Award Winning films,
animated versions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, plays, many video games, and music like Misty
Mountain Hop, Rivendell, and May it Be.
Since The Hobbit was released, approximately over one hundred million copies have been sold, and The
Lord of the Rings has sold approximately one hundred fifty million copies so far! The impact and popularity of
J.R.R. Tolkiens books have been well established and with every generation, his legacy lives on. And that is
why people remember him as one of the greatest writers in history.