John Ronald Reuel Tolkien Biography Essay

Living History: A Rather Curious Man On the hot Sunday morning of January 3, 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born, the first child of Arthur and Mabel Tolkien. His family was on the upper-middle class of society, his father being an English banker. At the time, this family was living in the South African city of Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State. Tolkien was a tiny, sickly child with a bit of health concern. In February of 1894, his only brother, Hilary, was born; he, too, a sickly child. It was decided that Mabel would take the two boys back to England, and that, soon, Arthur would join them. However, several months after getting settled in the new country, the family received word that Arthur had died of acute peritonitis in February of 1896. The small countryside that Mabel and her sons ended up moving to, Sarehole, was magical to Tolkien. It hadn’t changed in centuries, and it was “a kind of lost paradise”, fascinating to him. It was his litteral Shire, and Bag End was inspired by his Aunt Jane’s apple farm. Unfortunately, there were many differences between the village people and that of the Tolkiens. Their clothes, speech , and customs were very different;

Progress on his works was slow in 1942, but picked up again in 1944. There were two major events that took place between 1945 and ‘48. The first was that he resigned from twenty-five year Bosworth and rawlinson Professor post of Anglo-Saxon and Pembroke fellow post, and took up the chair as a Merton Professor of English Language and Literature. The second was that--sugar, fats, meat, and tobacco being hard to get one’s hands on during WWII--Christopher, sent some home to help his parents, him having a position in the military and all. Allen Barnett, an American friend did likewise, moving