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 * Home
 * Writing
   * The Hobbit
   * The Lord of the Rings
   * The Silmarillion
   * Other stories from Middle-Earth
   * Stories for Children
   * Other Works
   * Studies on Tolkien
 * Painting
   * Illustration
   * Maps
   * Calligraphy
 * Scholarship
   * Tom Shippey, ‘J.R.R. Tolkien and Philology’
   * Tom Shippey, ‘Translations and scholarly editions of medieval texts
   * Thomas Honegger, ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son’
   * Tom Shippey, ‘The Monsters and the Critics and other essays’
   * ‘Beowulf: a translation and commentary together with Sellic Spell’
   * J.R.R. Tolkien, ‘Thoughts on Translation (Beowulf)’
   * Leo Carruthers, ‘Understanding Beowulf’
   * Verlyn Flieger, ‘On Fairy Stories’
   * Arden Smith, ‘Writing Systems’
   * Carl Hostetter, ‘Tolkien’s Invented Languages’
   * Links to medieval texts
 * Letters
   * Stanley Unwin, 16 Dec 1937
   * Michael Tolkien, 6-8 Mar 1941
   * Christopher Tolkien, 30 Apr 1944
   * Christopher Tolkien, 30 Jan 1945
   * Milton Waldman, publisher, 1951
   * W.H. Auden, 7 Jun 1955
   * Rhona Beare, Oct 1958
   * Eileen Elgar, September 1963
   * Priscilla Tolkien, 26 Nov 1963
   * Christopher Bretherton, 16 July 1964
   * Michael Tolkien, 1967-1968
   * Carole Batten-Phelps, 1971
   * Christopher Tolkien, 11 July 1972
 * Life
   * Biography
   * Timeline
   * Family photographs
 * Audio-Visual
   * Audio
   * Visual


Select Page
 * Home
 * Writing
   * The Hobbit
   * The Lord of the Rings
   * The Silmarillion
   * Other stories from Middle-Earth
   * Stories for Children
   * Other Works
   * Studies on Tolkien
 * Painting
   * Illustration
   * Maps
   * Calligraphy
 * Scholarship
   * Tom Shippey, ‘J.R.R. Tolkien and Philology’
   * Tom Shippey, ‘Translations and scholarly editions of medieval texts
   * Thomas Honegger, ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son’
   * Tom Shippey, ‘The Monsters and the Critics and other essays’
   * ‘Beowulf: a translation and commentary together with Sellic Spell’
   * J.R.R. Tolkien, ‘Thoughts on Translation (Beowulf)’
   * Leo Carruthers, ‘Understanding Beowulf’
   * Verlyn Flieger, ‘On Fairy Stories’
   * Arden Smith, ‘Writing Systems’
   * Carl Hostetter, ‘Tolkien’s Invented Languages’
   * Links to medieval texts
 * Letters
   * Stanley Unwin, 16 Dec 1937
   * Michael Tolkien, 6-8 Mar 1941
   * Christopher Tolkien, 30 Apr 1944
   * Christopher Tolkien, 30 Jan 1945
   * Milton Waldman, publisher, 1951
   * W.H. Auden, 7 Jun 1955
   * Rhona Beare, Oct 1958
   * Eileen Elgar, September 1963
   * Priscilla Tolkien, 26 Nov 1963
   * Christopher Bretherton, 16 July 1964
   * Michael Tolkien, 1967-1968
   * Carole Batten-Phelps, 1971
   * Christopher Tolkien, 11 July 1972
 * Life
   * Biography
   * Timeline
   * Family photographs
 * Audio-Visual
   * Audio
   * Visual
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 * 
 * 



D I S C O V E R


T O L K I E N

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973): writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known
to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien
spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a
distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse.
His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works,
stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets.



‘The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the Water’


W R I T I N G

Tolkien’s most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in
Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by
ancient and extraordinary peoples. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes
perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal,
humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal.

Find out more


P A I N T I N G

Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist who painted for pleasure and
relaxation. He excelled at landscapes and often drew inspiration from his own
stories. He illustrated many scenes from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The
Lord of the Rings, sometimes drawing or painting as he was writing in order to
visualize the imagined scene more clearly

Find out more

‘Mithrim’

‘hringboga heorte gefysed’, Beowulf, line 2561 (‘Now was the heart of the
coiling beast stirred’)


S C H O L A R S H I P

Tolkien was a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for almost forty
years, teaching Old and Middle English, as well as Old Norse and Gothic. His
illuminating lectures on works such as the Old English epic poem, Beowulf,
illustrate his deep knowledge of ancient languages and at the same time provide
new insights into peoples and legends from a remote past.

Find out more


L E T T E R S

Tolkien lived in an era when letter-writing was the main form of communication.
His thoughtful and carefully crafted letters provide rich insights into a wide
range of topics: scholarly, personal and authorial. He never wrote an
autobiography and his letters now provide the most direct means of discovering
his personal opinions as well as his hopes and fears throughout a long and
productive life.

Find out more


Family on holiday in Weston-super-Mare, 1940

Family on holiday at Weston-super-Mare




L I F E

Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892 to English parents. He
came to England aged three and was brought up in and around Birmingham. He
graduated from the University of Oxford in 1915 and saw active service in France
during the First World War before being invalided home. After the war he pursued
an academic career teaching Old and Middle English. Alongside his professional
work, he invented his own languages and began to create what he called a
mythology for England; it was this ‘legendarium’ that he would work on
throughout his life. But his literary work did not start and end with
Middle-earth, he also wrote poetry, children’s stories and fairy tales for
adults. He died in 1973 and is buried in Oxford where he spent most of his adult
life.

Find out more

J.R.R. Tolkien in the grounds of Merton College, Oxford, 1968. © BBC.




A U D I O – V I S U A L

As a young man, Tolkien enjoyed performing in family plays at Christmas, and as
an adult, his academic lectures were a type of performance, intended to capture
the attention of weary students. In his readings from his own works, we can hear
his dramatic aptitude as he takes the part of different characters including a
hissing Gollum, a down-to-earth Sam Gamgee and a weary but determined King
Théoden. Following the success of The Lord of the Rings he was much sought after
by interviewers and was a natural and engaging presence, both in front of a
microphone and on camera.

Find out more

J.R.R. Tolkien in the grounds of Merton College, Oxford, 1968. © BBC.


“ ALL WE HAVE TO DECIDE IS WHAT TO DO WITH THE TIME THAT IS GIVEN US. ”

The Fellowship of the Ring

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