J.R.R. Tolkien
Full Name: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Date of birth: January 3rd, 1892
Place of birth: Bloemfontein, South Africa
Religion: Roman Catholic
His father, who was an English banker, died when he was young. He lived in England most of his life. Tolkien spent his early years on the countryside. His mother died when he was only twelve years old. His brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel, and himself were orphaned, but by chance a local priest took them in. Tolkien went to King Edward’s School in Birmingham.
After college, he earned a First in English Language and Literature at Oxford. He married Edith Bratt. During the war, he fought in the battle of the Somme. It is within the tribulations of war which he formed his imaginative ideas of the works he later wrote about (Mount Doom, for instance). After the war, he managed to obtain a post on the New English Dictionary where he began to write a novel which he later named The Silmarillion.Tolkien was a member of a group called the Inklings, where writers commented and used constructive criticism to help their peers with their novels. C.S. Lewis was another member of the group, and he and Tolkien became close friends. This is when Tolkien wrote The Hobbit. The book became a best seller soon after it was published. When he read it, Stanley Unwin (his publisher) requested Tolkien write a sequel to the book. What he got was much more. It took Tolkien twelve years to complete The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Unwin’s son decided it was best if it were split up into three separate books instead of one huge novel. Reluctantly, Tolkien accepted. His masterpiece was published later on.
A few years after Tolkien finally did retire, he and his wife moved to Bournemouth. When Edith passed away in 1971, Tolkien returned to Oxford, where they had lived previously. His death occurred shortly after—September 2, 1973. The Silmarillion was never fully finished, so his son, Christopher, completed the editing in his stead.
collected from In Depth Info and Tolkien UK.