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 it is the territory of South Africa. In 1892. He worked at Pembroke College and Oxford University. He taught Anglo-Saxon. 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 Inklings, an informal literary society in which novelties of fiction were valued and fantasy was especially fond of.

His most famous novels are The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. His last son Christopher published after his father's death. These three novels form a collection of works about the fictional world of Middle-earth. John Tolkien himself combined 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 novels in the fantasy genre. However, his popularity was so great, and the novels had such an impact on the development of the entire genre, that today Tolkien is officially called the father of fantasy. Speaking at the same time, first of all, about high fantasy.

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

At war

The English writer did not stay away from the key military conflicts of the 20th century. Although in 1914 he literally shocked his relatives by not immediately signing up for the front as a volunteer. First, he decided to get a degree. Only after that, John R. R. Tolkien entered the army with the rank of second lieutenant.

In 1916, as part of the 11th expeditionary battalion, he ended up in France. He served as a signalman in the north of France, in the area of ​​the river Somme. In these places he took a direct part in the battle on the Tipwal 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, which bred at that time in British dugouts. On 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 they 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 numbers, was a famous and successful writer. In 1971 he lost his wife and returned to Oxford.

A year later, doctors diagnosed him with dyspepsia, a violation 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. Pleurisy developed a few days later.

"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 goes on a journey after meeting with 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.

Tolkien originally wrote this book for one purpose only - to entertain his own children. However, the manuscript of this fascinating novel comes to the attention first of his friends and relatives, and then of British publishers. The latter immediately became interested in a new original work, asked the author to complete the manuscript and provide it with illustrations. That's what John Tolkien did. The Hobbit first appeared on bookstore shelves in the fall of 1937.

This novel was the first about the universe of Middle-earth, which the author has been developing for several decades. 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 reader rating, that it is not like any other work, despite the 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 protagonist of the previous work, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, retires. To his nephew Frodo, he leaves a magic ring that can make anyone who possesses it invisible. The powerful magician Gandalf reappears 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 Sauron, who lives in Mordor. He is the enemy of all free peoples, including the hobbits. At the same time, the ring of Omnipotence has its own will, is able to enslave its owner or extend his life. With his help, Sauron expects to subjugate all other magic rings and gain 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 crater of the Fiery Mountain. Frodo embarks on a perilous 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 of 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.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien(English) John Ronald Reuel Tolkien)- English writer, linguist and philologist. He is best known as the author of The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and their backstory, the novel The Silmarillion.

Born in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (now the Free State, South Africa). His parents, Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857-1896), an English bank manager, and Mabel Tolkien (Sufffield) (1870-1904), arrived in South Africa shortly before their son was born.
In early 1895, after the death of their father, the Tolkien family returned to England. The family settled in Sarehole, near Birmingham. Mabel Tolkien had a very modest income, which was just enough to live on.
Mabel taught her son the basics of the Latin language, and instilled a love of botany. Tolkien liked to paint landscapes and trees from an early age. He read a lot, and from the very beginning he disliked "Treasure Island" and "Gammeln Pied Piper" by the Brothers Grimm, but he liked "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll, stories about Indians, fantasy works of George MacDonald and "The Fairy Book" by Andrew Lang .
Tolkien's mother died of diabetes in 1904, at the age of 34. Before her death, she entrusted the upbringing of 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.
Before entering school, Tolkien and his brother spent a lot of time outdoors. The experience of these years was enough for Tolkien for 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, after studying Old Welsh and Finnish, he began to develop "elvish" languages. Subsequently, he studied at the school of St. Philip (St. Philip's School) and Oxford College Exeter.
In 1908 he met Edith Marie Brett, who had a great influence on his work.
Falling in love prevented Tolkien from going to college right away, besides, Edith was a Protestant and three years older than him. Father Francis took John's word of honor that he would not meet with Edith until he was 21 years old - that is, until the age of majority, when Father Francis ceased to be his guardian. Tolkien fulfilled his promise by not writing a single line to Mary Edith before reaching that 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, where he declared his love and offered his hand and heart. Edith replied that she had already agreed to marry another person, because she decided that Tolkien had long forgotten her. In the end, she returned the wedding ring to the 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 the Catholic Church of St. Mary. Their union with Edith Brett proved to be a long and happy one. The couple lived together for 56 years and raised 3 sons - John Francis Reuel (1917), Michael Hilary Reuel (1920), Christopher Reuel (1924), and daughter Priscilla Mary Reuel (1929).
In 1915, Tolkien graduated with honors from the university and went to serve, soon John was called to the front and participated in the First World War.
John survived the bloody battle on the Somme, where two of his best friends died, after which he began to hate war. Then he fell ill with typhus, and after a long treatment was sent home with a 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 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 the world.
At the same time, he began to write the great cycle of myths and legends of Middle Earth (Middle Earth), which would later become the "Silmarillion". There were four children in his family, for them 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 Unwin suggested Tolkien write a sequel, but work on the trilogy took a long time and the book was not finished until 1954, when Tolkien was about to retire. The trilogy was published and was a huge success, which surprised both the author and the publisher. Unwin expected to lose considerable money, but he personally liked the book very much, and he was very eager to publish his friend's work. The book was divided into 3 parts, so that after the publication and sale of the first part, it became clear whether it was worth printing the rest.
After the death of his wife in 1971, Tolkien returned to Oxford. Soon he became seriously ill and soon, on September 2, 1973, he died.
All of his works published after 1973, including The Silmarillion, were published by his son Christopher.

English literature

John Roland Reuel Tolkien

Biography

TOlkien, JOHN RONALD REWEL (Tolkien) (1892−1973), English writer, doctor of literature, artist, professor, philologist-linguist. One of the founders of the Oxford English Dictionary. Author of the fairy tale The Hobbit (1937), the novel The Lord of the Rings (1954), the mythological epic The Silmarillion (1977).

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

Tolkien created hobbits - "low clicks" - charming, captivatingly reliable creatures that look like children. Combining stamina and frivolity, curiosity and childish laziness, incredible ingenuity with innocence, cunning and gullibility, courage and courage with the ability to avoid trouble.

First of all, it is the hobbits that give such credibility to Tolkien's world.

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

By the age of four, thanks to the efforts of his mother, little John already knew how to read and even wrote the first letters.

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

A great influence on the initial formation of John's personality was also made by his grandfather John Suffield, who was proud of his pedigree of craftsmen-engravers. John's mother and grandfather strongly supported John's early interest in Latin and Greek.

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

No less passionately fond of Tolkien elves and dragons. Dragons and elves will become the main characters of the first fairy tale composed by Ronald at the age of seven.

In 1904, as soon as John was twelve years old, his mother died of diabetes. The children's guardian is their distant relative, the priest, Father Francis. The brothers again move to Birmingham. Feeling longing for free hills, fields and favorite trees, John is looking for new attachments and spiritual support. More and more fond of drawing, revealing extraordinary abilities. By the age of fifteen, he amazes school teachers with an obsession with philology. He reads the Old English poem Beowulf, returns to medieval legends about the knights of the Round Table (see ARTHURAN LEGENDS). Soon he independently begins to study the Old Icelandic language, then he gets to German books on philology. The joy of learning ancient languages ​​captivates 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 for young people becomes exciting fun and at the same time acquaintance with 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 an immense amount" of their fairy 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, having given birth to three sons and a daughter. But first, five years of hard trials fell to their lot: John's unsuccessful attempt to enter Oxford University, Edith's categorical rejection by his father Francis, the horrors of the First World War, typhus, which John Ronald had twice been ill with. In April 1910, Tolkien saw a performance of Peter Pan based on the play by James Barry at the Birmingham Theatre. "It's indescribable, but I won't forget it as long as I live," John wrote. Still, luck smiled at John. After a second attempt at Oxford in 1910, Tolkien learned that he had been given a scholarship to Exeter College. And thanks to an exit scholarship from King Edward's School and additional funds provided by Father Francis, Ronald could already afford to go to Oxford. During his last summer vacation, John visited Switzerland. He writes 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 some 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 deer. Many years later, upon discovering a postcard in the bottom of one of the drawers of his desk, Tolkien wrote: "Gandalf's prototype." So in the imagination of John appeared for the first time one of the most famous heroes of the Lord of the Rings. Entering Oxford, Tolkien meets with the famous self-taught professor Joe Wright. He strongly advises the novice linguist to "take up the Celtic language seriously." The passion for Ronald and the theater is growing. He plays the role of Mrs. Malaprop in R. Sheridan's play Rivals. By his coming of age, he wrote a play - 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, as World War I broke out, Tolkien hurried to get his degree from Oxford so he could volunteer for the army. At the same time he enters the courses of radio operators-communicators. In July 1915, he takes an early exam in English language and literature for a bachelor's degree and receives a first class honors. After military training in Bedford, he was awarded the rank of second lieutenant and assigned to serve in the Lancashire Rifles. In March 1916 Tolkien marries, and already on July 14, 1916 he goes into the first battle. He was destined to be in the center of a meat grinder on the Somme, where tens of thousands of his compatriots died. Having known all the "horrors and abominations of the monstrous massacre", John hated both the war and the "inspirers of terrible battles ...". However, 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 Hobbitania would not exist. And without the Hobbitania and the Hobbits, there would be no Lord of the Rings." Death bypassed John, but he was overtaken by another terrible misfortune - "trench fever" - typhus, which claimed more lives in the First World War than bullets and shells. Tolkien hurt him twice. From the hospital at Le Touquet he was sent by ship to England. In rare hours, when a terrible illness let go of John, he conceived and began to write the first drafts of his fantastic epic - The Silmarillion, a story about the three magic rings of omnipotent power. November 16, 1917 his first son is born, and Tolkien is awarded the rank of lieutenant. The war ends in 1918. John and his family move to Oxford. He is admitted to compiling the General Dictionary of the New English Language. Here is a review from a friend of the writer, linguist Clive Stiles Lewis: “He (Tolkien) went inside the language. For he possessed a unique ability to feel both the language of poetry and the poetry of language at the same time. In 1924 he was approved as a professor, and in 1925 he was awarded the chair of the Anglo-Saxon language at Oxford. At the same time, he continues to work on The Silmarillion, creating a new incredible world. A kind of another dimension with its own history and geography, phenomenal animals and plants, real and unreal beings. While working on the dictionary, Tolkien had the opportunity to think about the composition and appearance of tens of thousands of words that absorbed the Celtic beginning, Latin, Scandinavian, Old German and Old French influences. This work further stimulated his gift as an artist, helped to unite different categories of living beings and different times and spaces into his Tolkien world. At the same time, Tolkien did not lose his "literary soul". His scientific works were imbued with the imagery of writer's thinking. He also illustrated many of his fairy tales, especially liked to depict humanized trees. A special place is occupied by the letters of Santa Claus illustrated by him to children. The letter was specially written in the "trembling" handwriting of Santa Claus, "who had just escaped from a terrible blizzard." Tolkien's most famous books are inextricably linked. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were written, in total, from 1925 to 1949. The protagonist of the first story of The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, has the same opportunities for self-expression in a vast and complex world as a child discoverer. Bilbo is constantly taking risks to get out of threatening adventures, he must be resourceful and courageous all the time. And one more circumstance. Hobbits are a free people, there are no leaders in Hobbitania, and Hobbits get along just fine without them. But the Hobbit was just a prelude to Tolkien's great otherworld. The key to looking into other dimensions and a warning. Serious food for thought. The action-packed tale repeatedly hints at a world of much more significant improbability lurking behind it. Bridges to the infinite future are two of the Hobbit's most enigmatic characters - the magician Gandalf and a creature called Gollum. The Hobbit was published on September 21, 1937. The first edition was sold out by Christmas. The tale wins the New York Herald Tribune's Best Book of the Year Award. The Hobbit becomes a bestseller. Then came The Lord of the Rings. This epic novel has become an elixir of love of life for tens of millions of people, a road to the unknowable, a paradoxical proof that it is the thirst for knowledge of miracles that moves the worlds. Nothing in Tolkien's novel is accidental. Whether it's the snarling faces that once flickered 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 Wales Peninsula. Dwarves and magicians are named, as the Scandinavian saga suggested, people are called names from the Irish heroic epic. Tolkien's own inventions of fantastic creatures have the basis of "folk poetic imagination". The time of work on the Lord of the Rings coincided with the Second World War. Undoubtedly, all the experiences and hopes of that time, doubts and aspirations of the author could not but be reflected in the life of even his other being. One of the main virtues of his novel is a prophetic warning about the mortal danger lurking in the boundless Power. Only the unity of the most courageous and wise champions of goodness and reason, capable of stopping the grave-diggers of the joy of being, is capable of resisting this. The first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings appeared in 1954. In 1955, the third volume was published. “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 time of Odysseus, this is not a return, but progress, moreover, a revolution, the conquest of new territory.” The novel was translated into many languages ​​​​of the world and was sold at first in a million copies, and today it has surpassed the bar of twenty million. The book has become a cult among the youth of many countries. Detachments of Tolkinists, dressed in knightly armor, still organize games, tournaments and “campaigns of honor and valor” in the USA, England, Canada, and New Zealand to this day. Tolkien's creations 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. The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers directed by Peter Jackson (filmed in New Zealand) hit the screens of the world, and a new wave of interest in the Lord of the Rings novel arose among young and very young. The last story Tolkien wrote in 1965 is called The Blacksmith of Wootton Great. In his last years, Tolkien is surrounded by universal recognition. In June 1972 he received the title of Doctor of Literature from Oxford University, and in 1973 at Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth presented the writer with the Order of the British Empire of the second degree. Tolkien died on September 2, 1973, at Bornemouth, at the age of eighty-one. In 1977, the final version of The Silmarillion was published by the writer's son Christopher Tolkien.

John Roland Reuel, Tolkien (Tolkien) was born on January 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

His father was a bank clerk from Birmingham. In search of a better life, the family moved to South Africa. In the same year, their son, John, was born.

Two years later, on February 17, 1894, the mother of the future writer gave birth to another boy. Due to the fact that the local climate had a bad effect on the children, the mother takes them back to England. Thanks to the efforts of his mother, young John could read and write some letters at the age of four.

In February 1896, Tolkien's father dies from severe bleeding. The mother, Mabel Suffield, took care of the family. Due to the fact that she had a good education and was fluent in several languages, the children grew up as educated and well-mannered people.

Tolkien's grandfather had a rather large influence on the formation of the personality of a teenager. Mom and grandfather in every possible way contributed to John's early passion for Latin and Greek.

In 1896, the mother and children moved to Sarhole Village. It is here that the future writer discovers the talent of a popular novelist. In the vicinity of the village, he became seriously interested in the natural world, trying to learn all the secrets of creation.

In his last years, Tolkien was recognized by the whole world, and in June 1972 he received the title of Doctor of Literature from Oxford University. In 1973, Tolkien was awarded the Order of the British Empire.

John Tolkien died on September 2, 1973 in Bornemouth (UK). At that time he was 81 years old.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa, to Arthur Tolkien and Mabel Suffield Tolkien. After the death of Arthur Tolkien from peritonitis, Mabel moved in with 4-year-old J.R.R. (at that time he was called Ronald) and his younger brother Hilary to a village called Sarehole, near Birmingham, England.

Mabel Tolkien died in 1904 and the Tolkien brothers were sent to live in a boarding school with a distant relative of the family and a Catholic priest in Birmington, who took custody of them. J.R.R. He received a first-class education at Exeter College, where he specialized in the study of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic languages ​​and in classical literature. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers and fought in the First World War while trying to keep writing. He survived the bloody battle on the Somme, which brought huge losses, and was released from military service due to illness. At the height of his military service in 1916, he marries Edith Brett.

Career as a scientist and writer

Continuing his studies of linguistics, Tolkien began teaching at the University of Leeds in 1920, and a few years later became a professor at Oxford University. There he founded a writing group called the Inklings, which included such writers as C.S. Lewin and Owen Barfield. It was at Oxford, while checking student papers, that he suddenly wrote a short sentence about "hobbit".

The award-winning fantasy novel The Hobbit follows Bilbo Baggins - short and furry on his feet - and his adventures. The novel was published in 1937 and was attributed to children's literature, although Tolkien himself claimed that the book was not intended for children. He also created over 100 illustrations to accompany the story.

Over the years, while working in scholarly publications, Tolkien created what is considered his masterpiece, the Lord of the Rings series of books, partly inspired by ancient European myths, but with its own set of maps, lore, and languages.

Tolkien published the first part of The Fellowship of the Ring in 1954; The Two Towers and The Return of the King in 1955, ending the trilogy. The books became a rich literary find for readers, populated by elves, goblins, talking trees, and all sorts of fantastical creatures, including such characters as the wizard Gandalf and the dwarf Gimli.

Although The Ring has received its fair share of criticism, many reviewers and currents among the influx of readers have embraced Tolkien's world, resulting in his books becoming world bestsellers and fans forming Tolkien clubs to learn his fictional language.

Tolkien resigned his professorship in 1959, publishing essays, the poetry collection Tree and Leaf, and the fantasy tale The Blacksmith of Wootton Great. His wife Edith died in 1971, and Tolkien himself died on September 2, 1973 at the age of 81. They left four children.

Heritage

The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series have become among the most popular books, selling tens of millions of copies worldwide. The Rings Trilogy was adapted into a movie by director Peter Jackson and became a wildly popular, award-winning trio of films starring the likes of Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett and Viggo Mortensen, among others. Jackson also directed a three-part film adaptation of The Hobbit starring Martin Freeman, the first part of which was released in late 2012.

Tolkien's son, Christopher, edited several works that were not completed by his father before his death, including The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin, which were published posthumously. The drawings for The Hobbit were published in 2012, in celebration of the novel's 75th anniversary, featuring Tolkien's original illustrations for his work.

Quotes

“Do you really want to know how I created Middle-earth? – this is my surprise and delight with our planet as it is, especially its wildlife.”

“Hobbits are what I would like to be, but never have been. They do not know how to fight and always get together to come to an agreement.”

Biography score

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Parents did not agree on how to name the first child. The mother, resigned to the need to give the boy the middle name Ruel (as in the Tolkien family from time immemorial all eldest sons were recorded), chose “Ronald” as the first name. Father liked "John" better. So they called the boy - each in his own way. Later, classmates nicknamed him the Zvonar, for his love of lengthy reasoning. Colleagues called him J.R.R.T, students called him the Mad Hatter, close friends called him an Oxymoron. This word in philology denotes paradoxical phrases, such as “foolishly smart” - and this is how the German “Toll-kuhn”, consonant with the name of John Ruel Ronald, can be translated. “It all worked out for me somehow stupidly, not like the others,” Tolkien argued. “The English are like hobbits, after all. The less something happens to them, the more honorable they are. And Oxford is certainly not a hotbed of people with fascinating biographies. My own life story would be more suitable not for an armchair scientist, but for some literary hero ”...

The beginning of his biography seems to be taken from Kipling. Ronald was born in the Orange Republic - much later this state will be called South Africa. His father, Arthur Reuel Tolkien, ran a branch of Lloyd Bank in the town of Bloemfontein: only two hundred dilapidated houses, blown through by dust storms from the veld (the bare African steppe, where nothing grows but withered grass). At night, the howl of a jackal freezes the heart, rifle shots interfere with sleep - Bloommfontein men take turns keeping a night watch, driving the lions away from the city. But you can’t scare monkeys with any shots - they jump over fences, climb into houses, drag everything that lies badly. The Tolkiens' barn is full of poisonous snakes. In the first year of life, John Reuel Ronald scares his parents by disappearing from home - it turns out that a local servant boy simply took the baby to the veld, to his village, to show his relatives. In the second year of his life, Tolkien was bitten by a tarantula - fortunately, the nanny quickly discovered the wound and sucked out the poison.

Then life took a sharp turn in the direction of the Dickensian plot. When the boy was four years old, his father died of a tropical fever. In the orange republic, the family no longer held anything, and the mother, Mabel, along with her sons Ronald and Hilary settled in England - they lived almost starving, having only 30 shillings a week. At the age of ten, Ronald was completely orphaned - Mabel brought diabetes to the grave, which they did not know how to treat at the beginning of the 20th century. The little Tolkiens were assigned to live with a malicious distant relative, Aunt Beatrice, in Birmingham. First of all, in front of the orphans, she burned the letters and portraits of their deceased mother. The fact is that Mabel, shortly before her death, converted to Catholicism, and instructed the children in the same spirit. Now Aunt Beatrice sought, by banishing the memories of their mother from their memory, to return the boys to the bosom of the Anglican Church. In fairness, it must be said that this was done with the best of intentions: it is known, after all, that a Catholic in Protestant England will not see an easy life ... But only the little Tolkiens persisted. Hilary paid dearly for his stubbornness: he was not taken to any Birmingham school. But Ronald was lucky - in the most prestigious school of King Edward, where they accepted either rich or very gifted children, they looked at these things through their fingers. And Ronald was so gifted that he was given a scholarship.

It was not a school, but a treasure trove for a boy like the young Tolkien. In addition to the obligatory French and German languages, he studied there Greek and Middle English of the 7th-11th centuries. There were four such lovers of linguistics at the school, and they founded their own club - CHBKO, "Tea Club of the Barrovian Society." After all, they were going to five-o-clock in a small cafe at Barrow's department store on Corporation Street, in the center of Birmingham. Aunt Beatrice tried to forbid Ronald and this innocent entertainment. She believed that a boy without a livelihood should not imagine too much about himself, because in the future he can only count on the place of a street vendor of disinfectants (this, by the way, was Tolkien's grandfather). Fortunately, in addition to the old fury, the boys also had a guardian - the confessor of the late Mabel, fatherFrancis. Once, taking pity, he took the little Tolkiens from Aunt Beatrice and placed them in Mrs. Faulkner's boarding house, all in the same Birmingham. It was in 1908, Ronald was sixteen years old. And then there was a plot of a new "literary" plot - this time a love one.

Edith Bratt occupied a room directly below the one where the Tolkien brothers settled, so that they could talk while sitting on the windowsills. Very pretty, grey-eyed, with a fashionable short haircut. She was almost 3 years older than Ronald, and seemed seductively mature to him. Young people went on bike rides outside the city, sat by the stream for hours, and when it rained, they hid in cafes.

The cafe owner reported these meetings to Mrs. Faulkner: “Just think, my dear! A young man with a girl, secretly, without the accompaniment of elders ... This is a scandal! Father Francis, having learned about everything, was angry: “Edith is a Protestant, besides, you should now only be interested in preparing for Oxford! In general, I forbid you to see, as well as correspond with this girl. At least for the next three years.”

Ronald did not dare to disobey. She and Edith said goodbye at the station - the girl's guardian, her own uncle, ordered her to go to him in Cheltenham. “In three years we will definitely see each other!” Tolkien repeated, like a spell. Edith shook her head hopelessly.

Three years is a long time. Once at Oxford Exeter College, Tolkien seemed to have completely forgotten about the past. He enthusiastically studied languages: Latin, Old English, Welsh, Old Finnish, Old Norse - as well as the art of drinking beer without getting drunk, talking without letting go of his pipe from his mouth, and in the morning looking like a pickle after a night of feasting. However, in January 1913, when the ban expired, the young man wrote a letter to Edith asking for her hand in marriage. The answer stunned Tolkien: it turns out that Edith did not hope for a new meeting with him and had long ago become engaged to a certain George Field, the brother of her school friend.

“Coming to you in Cheltenham,” Ronald sent a telegram. Edith met him on the platform ... Poor George Field was left with a nose: Miss Bratt agreed to marry Tolkien. “You only need one thing for this,” Ronald urged. - Convert to Catholicism!

At first, Edith thought it was a trifling condition. Yes, but her uncle, who was considered one of the pillars of the Anglican community of Cheltenham, immediately kicked her out of the house. Good thing, her cousin, hunchbacked and elderly Jenny Grove, let Edith live with her in Warwick. Ronald rarely came, but he sent letters from Oxford about merry parties, punting and playing tennis, as well as about the most entertaining debates at meetings of the debating club. And also about financial difficulties. There was no talk of a wedding date - it was assumed that Ronald would first get a little rich.

To this end, he was hired as a tutor to two Mexican boys in France. When he returned, Tolkien did not talk about the wedding. He spent everything he earned on old Japanese prints, and looked at them for hours in silence, and was depressed. It turned out that the boys' aunt, a young and lovely signora, was hit to death by a car in Paris.Fortunately, Edith was wise enough not to annoy Ronald too much with her claims. And, grieving for the dead Mexican, he again remembered the bride.

This time the wedding was interrupted by the war. Tolkien was drafted into the army as a lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. In anticipation of being sent to the front line, he grew a mustache, studied connected business (Morse code and the language of signal flags), and scribbled letters to Edith about how he missed ... the university library and a glass of good port wine in friendly company.

In March 1916, they nevertheless got married - very casually and as if by chance - as if there were no six years of waiting. It's just that Tolkien was given a day's leave, and a friend had a free motorcycle on which he could get to Warwick ... Two days later, their regiment went to fight in France. The Times just published statistics: the life of a recruit at the front, on average, does not exceed a few weeks ...

The Battle of the Somme - the first and last in which Tolkien had a chance to participate - went down in history as the most incompetent and bloodiest in the history of England. Nineteen thousand Englishmen died under German machine guns, sixty were wounded. For two days Ronald commanded his company without change. Then - a short respite, and again into battle. Two former members of the BWTO died in this massacre. Tolkien was lucky - he caught trench fever. For many years, he then blessed the louse that had bitten him so successfully, infecting him with a saving infection. Ronald was sent to Birmingham for treatment, and his wife immediately arrived there.

This was their honeymoon: Ronald had just left the hospital - pale, emaciated, all kind of transparent, staggering from weakness. It was cold, there was not enough food and fuel. And yet it was the happiest time in the life of the Tolkiens. Once in the forest, on a walk, Edith got naughty and began to dance, singing to herself. After Tolkien claimed: looking at this dance, he came up with his Beren and Luthien - the main characters of the "Legendarium" and secondary "Lord of the Rings" (the Strider will sing about them).

In February 1917, the military authorities remembered Tolkien. I had to go to Yorkshire for retraining. But Ronald never reached the front line - the disease relapsed, and he again ended up in the hospital. This went on for another year and a half: a short remission, and a new attack of the disease. A camp at Ruse, a hospital in Yorkshire, a sanatorium in Birmingham. A camp at Birmingham, a hospital at Ruse, a sanatorium in Yorkshire. Edith, tired of following her husband from city to city, returned to Cheltenham to give birth to her first child, John Francis Reyel. It was not clear where and what to live. Ronald is of little use. In letters, Edith broke down, reproached her husband: “Recently, you have spent so much time in bed that you rested for the rest of your life. And here I am…”, etc., etc. But everything eventually ends. The war ended, and with it Ronald's illness (the doctors said: "A miracle!"). It was time to return to Oxford - to establish both scientific and family life ...

... 1929. The Tolkiens already have four children: John, Michael, Christopher and newborn Priscilla. The family lives in a cozy, briar-covered house on Normouth Rose. To work - to teach English philology at Exeter College - Ronald rides a bicycle. On the way, he always mutters something in an unknown language.

Composing new languages ​​was his passion! For example, the Quenya language spoken by the elves in The Lord of the Rings was created by Ronald by mixing Old English and Welsh based on Finnish. But even when Professor Tolkien spoke in normal, English, it was sometimes difficult to understand him. His speech, somewhat indistinct from childhood, became completely illegible after his illness: he whispered, whistled, and, most importantly, always did not keep up with his own thoughts, talked about elves and dwarves, got excited, laughed ... In a word, John Reyel Ronald the longer he lived, the more he became an eccentric.

Costume parties were sometimes held in Oxford - Professor Tolkien invariably appeared in the attire of an ancient Viking with an ax in his hands. He was very fond of the old Celtic epics. And he lamented that England did not have its own mythology, only Scandinavian borrowings. Secretly, he dreamed of creating British mythology himself, and he talked a lot about this at a meeting of the Coalbiters club - on winter evenings, pundits, discussing philological problems, huddled up to the fireplace so much that it seemed that they were about to bury their faces in hot coal. At the same time, they laughed wildly, so that those around them thought: they are carrying obscene things.

For some time now, Tolkien's life has ceased to follow the laws of literature, and has become like the one that thousands of respectable Englishmen lead: in the morning, work, dine at home, with his wife and children, then to the club, then - work again ... That's what Tolkien hated - it was, returning from the "Charberbiters" to get back to the tedious work like checking exam papers. But one day, in the late spring evening of 1936, while checking examination essays, a fateful incident happened to Professor Tolkien. He himself said: “One of the applicants became generous and handed over a whole blank page without writing anything on it - this is the best thing that can happen to an examiner! And I wrote on it "In a hole, deep in the earth lived a hobbit." Actually, I wanted to write “rabbit” (in English - “rabbit”, author's note), but it turned out “hobbit”. Taking into account the Latin “hommo”, that is, “man”, it turns out something like a rabbit-man. Nouns are always overgrown in my mind with stories. And I thought it wouldn't hurt to find out who this hobbit was, and what kind of hole it was. Over time, my accidental slip of the tongue was overgrown with the whole world of Middle-earth”...

In fact, Tolkien had written a little before. His eldest son, John, fell asleep very badly, and had to sit at his head for hours, continuing the “series” about Carrot, a red-haired boy who lives in a wall clock. The middle one, Michael, who suffered from nightmares, demanded stories about an inveterate villain named Bill Stackers (this name Tolkien remembered from the day he saw a sign on the Oxford gate with a strange inscription: “Bill Stackers will be prosecuted”) . The youngest, Christopher, most of all liked to hear about the adventures of the good wizard Tom Bombadil - the one who will save the Hobbits in the Eternal Forest in The Lord of the Rings. Well, now all three began to hear about the Hobbit.

The book publisher Stanley Unwin, who was asked to publish the story “The Hobbit or There and Back Again,” first slipped it to his own ten-year-old son Rayner. For one shilling, the boy wrote a review: “This book, thanks to the cards, does not need any illustrations, it is good and will appeal to all children from 5 to 9 years old.” A year later, Unwin, convinced of the success of The Hobbit, invited Tolkien to write a sequel. So Ronald sat down for The Lord of the Rings.

From 1937 until the outbreak of the Second World War, Tolkien managed to bring the hobbits only to the River (the third chapter of the first book). It took four whole years to get to Balin's tomb (fourth chapter of the second book). The work was difficult. There was not enough paper and ink. Food, by the way, was also lacking. Not to mention peace and confidence in the future. True, Tolkien hardly heard the bombings - Great Britain agreed with Germany to protect large university centers: Oxford with Cambridge and Heidelberg with Göttingen. But you can’t hide from the war at all! Several refugees were placed in the house of the Tolkiens, two younger sons were taken into the army. The eldest - John - escaped this fate only because he was preparing to take the priesthood in Rome. In January 1941, Michael Tolkien was seriously wounded, and his father was not at all up to work. In a word, Tolkien finished the last, sixth book only in 1947 - exactly 10 years after the start of work on The Lord of the Rings. It took another 5 years to negotiate with publishers. Now, after the war, the world had changed, and no one knew if they would buy a sequel to The Hobbit. They decided to release a small circulation - three and a half thousand copies. The selling price was determined almost the minimum - 21 shillings. Still, the publishers were preparing to lose up to £1,000 on this business. Instead, they became millionaires.

“We do any surgery, except for lengthening and sharpening of the ears” - brass plates with this text have appeared on the doors of plastic surgery clinics since the late 50s. It was then that young people of both sexes began to turn to surgeons with a request to change their appearance “under the elves” - and all because of the epic “The Lord of the Rings”, which is called the “book of the twentieth century” ...

“Hello, please invite Professor Tolkien to the phone,” a sonorous voice sang out in an American manner.

— Tolkien is on the phone. What happened? the professor was frightened awake.

“Nothing happened,” they were surprised at the other end of the wire. “It's just that I'm the head of the Los Angeles Tolkienist Association. We are preparing for the big Lord of the Rings game, we are sewing costumes. Please resolve our dispute. Does the Balrog monster from the first volume have wings?

- Wings? At the Balrog? Tolkien asked dumbfounded. He finally managed to light the lamp and examine the dial of his wristwatch - that's right, three after midnight! Well, of course, in this damn California it's seven in the evening ...

From the bed, an angry Edith spoke up: “What do they allow themselves to do?! Call a respectable family, night-midnight! Tolkien glanced guiltily at his wife. Poor thing! It was always difficult for her with him, and now doubly ... Glory is not an easy burden. Journalists besiege the house, unfamiliar women telegraph about passionate love for Aragorn, a tent camp is set up under the windows, and wild-looking youths, shaggy, with crazy eyes, chant: “Tolkien is a god! Tolkien is a guru!”. They say they swallow the "Lord of the Rings" half and half with LSD ... How, I mean, them? Hippie, right? Or take, at least, such nightly calls. The last time he received a call from Tokyo - they were interested in how the verb “lantar” from the language of elves sounds in the past tense. Such a life fits a movie star, not a quiet Oxford professor.

Tolkien earned much less publishers - only about 5 thousand pounds - but at that time this ensured a comfortable life until the end of his days. And Ronald decided to retire and move away from the fans - to some quiet, old man's place. A pool on the south coast of England turned out to be just that. The only pity is that Tolkien had absolutely no one to talk to here. The spouses suddenly changed places: he was locked up at home, and she, quickly making friends with the locals, walked around the guests and played bridge ... Tolkien was not offended and did not grumble - he was glad that his wife would at least now receive “compensation” for many years of loneliness and downtrodden. It just so happened that only in old age did the couple finally get used to and became attached to each other.

In 1971, eighty-two-year-old Edith died, and without her, Ronald began to fail. At the end of August 1972, at a friend's birthday party, he drank some champagne, and at night he experienced such pain that he had to call an ambulance. Three days later, Tolkien died in the hospital from an ulcer.

She and Edith are buried together in a suburb of Oxford. The inscription on the stone, according to Tolkien's will, reads: "Edith Mary Tolkien, Luthien, 1889-1971, John Reyel Ronald Tolkien, Beren, 1892-1972."

Although, to be honest, the modest Oxford professor looked a little like the heroic Beren. “Actually, I am a hobbit, only a big one,” he said in one of his last interviews. — I love gardens, trees, I smoke a pipe, and I like healthy unsalted and unfrozen food. I love and even dare to wear vests decorated with ornaments in our boring time. I really love mushrooms, I have a simple sense of humor, which many critics find boring and uninteresting. I go to bed late and wake up late whenever possible.”

... The Tolkienist movement is alive to this day. Every now and then, somewhere far away from civilization, they arrange costumed games of hobbits, elves, orcs and trolls, with battles with wooden swords, with sieges of fortresses, funerals and weddings. Numerous Tolkien encyclopedias, reference books and atlases are published every year, in which everything looks like Middle-earth really exists. It can be seen that Clive Staples Lewis (also a famous writer and friend of Tolkien in the Coalbiters club) was right when he wrote an annotation for the first edition of The Lord of the Rings: “we are not afraid to say that the world has not yet seen such a book.”

Irina LYKOVA

Afterword…

In Russia, they learned about Tolkien late. Although the trilogy was published in England just two years after Stalin's death - in 1955 - and soon translated into many languages, including Japanese, Hebrew and Serbo-Croatian - everything but Russian and Chinese.

Tolkien always remained within the framework of reality and did not give his dreams and feelings the status of an indisputable truth. The language he invented was spoken in Atlantis. Atlantis - under a different name - is also found in Tolkien's epic "The Silmarillion". All his life Tolkien was haunted by a dream about a black wave that swallows green fields and villages, and then this dream was inherited by one of his sons...

"The Silmarillion" Tolkien began to write almost immediately after graduating from university (and, we note in parentheses, enlisting in the ranks of the army in the field) - in his own words, invented languages ​​\u200b\u200bdemanded for themselves a universe where they could freely develop and function, and Tolkien set out to create such a universe.

In 1926, Tolkien met C. S. Lewis. Around Tolkien and Lewis soon formed a small circle of writers, students and teachers, passionate about ancient languages ​​and myths - the Inklings. Tolkien does extensive scientific work, translates Anglo-Saxon poetry, works hard to provide for a family that has grown from two to six people, and in his spare time tells fairy tales to children and draws (these drawings in England withstood more than one edition). In 1936, after the publication of one of these "home" fairy tales - "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again" - literary success comes to Tolkien, the publishing house orders a sequel ... Since then, scientific activity has faded into the background and at night Tolkien writes "Lord of the Rings".

The Silmarillion was not forgotten either. By that time, the epic included the history of the creation of the world and the fall of Atlantis, the history of the gods (Valars) and the races that inhabit the Earth together with man - the noble immortal elves (creating his elves, Tolkien largely relied on the Old English Christian tradition, where the discussion about the existence elves and their nature was considered quite justified), dwarves, treemen ... The Silmarillion unfolds into a tragic and majestic picture - and this is not about any other planet, but about our Earth: Tolkien, as it were, "restores" the forgotten links her stories, brings to light lost tales, "clarifies" the origin of children's rhymes, which, in his opinion, are often fragments of beautiful, but lost legends of the past ... Tolkien's plan is ambitious and grandiose - he intends to create nothing more and nothing less than " mythology for England". At the same time, he does not pretend for a second that his fantasy is anything more than a fantasy. Man is made in the image and likeness of God, says Tolkien in his essay "On Fairy Tales"; hence man is capable of creating worlds.

It is worth remembering, however, that the Silmarillion could have remained an unknown eccentricity of an Oxford professor, had not come out from under the pen of the same professor The Lord of the Rings, conceived as a continuation of a children's book, but, word for word, unexpectedly for the author himself turned into a book for all ages. The Lord of the Rings breathed life and soul into the Silmarillion, which it lacked. Against a majestic background, heroes close to everyone appeared, and with their help the reader was able to be transported into Tolkien's world on an equal footing with the heroes of the epic, and Tolkien's world, in addition to the "heroic" and "elven", gained a "human" dimension.

"The Lord of the Rings" is passed by the author through the experience of the Second World War. Tolkien never had any illusions about the "leftists", especially about Stalin - he assessed him quite soberly, and the aura of the winner could not overshadow this truth with its brilliance that blinded many. He foresaw the war - and was very upset by the mistakes of English politicians before it began; Nor was he fascinated by the romance of the Spanish Civil War, although even Lewis had succumbed to it. But, apparently, John Ronald possessed a truly adamantite firmness of conviction and sobriety of thought. The delight of merging with the crowd was absent from the formula of his spirit.

In 1949, The Lord of the Rings was finished ("I gave birth to a monster," Tolkien scared the publishers) and in 1955 was published.

By the age of sixty, when Tolkien suddenly became famous - he was flattered and surprised. In letters to friends, he admitted that, "like all dragons, he is not indifferent to flattery." The success of the book brightened up the last years of the writer with material wealth. A new, voluntary obligation appeared - to answer letters from fans, to receive visitors ... In addition, anxiety joined the joys of success - in many places on the globe the book was taken so seriously that it almost replaced the Holy Scriptures for some enthusiastic personalities, became their life and faith. It is easy to guess how this burdened the conscience of the Christian author.

The first translation of The Hobbit into Russian took place only in 1976. And in 1982 - translation into Russian of the first volume of "The Lord of the Rings" under the title "Keepers".

In the last years of his life, Tolkien was preparing The Silmarillion for publication, but he never finished this work.

Based on the materials of the portal ENROF.net