John Ronald Ruel Tolkien (that's Tolk-een) was born January 3, 1982 in South Africa to English parents Mabel and Arthur. Shortly after is fourth birthday, his father died. This obviously had taken a large toll on him and his life, and he became sort of a father to his younger brother. He and his mother were very close and it was her who encouraged him to appreciate language. Sadly, she died when he was just twelve.

He and his brother were taken up by Father Frances Morgan, however they were soon passed onto an aunt (by marriage), Beatrice Suffield, and then with a Mrs. Faulkner. Tolkien was already showing remarkable linguistic gifts by this time, a master of Latin and Greek, and becoming more than competent in a number of other languages. He had already begun making up his own languages, which eventually sprung the idea of making up a history and geography for them.

He had made a few close friends at King Edward's, his school, and in later years they met regularly after hours as the TCBS (Tea Club, Barrovian Society, named after their meeting place at the Barrow Stores), which was an appreciation for old heroistic works such as Beowulf. They continued to correspond and criticise each other's works until 1916.

Along with others at Mrs. Faulkner's boarding house, there was a young woman named Edith Bratt. When Tolkien was 16 (she was 19), they became friends, though their friendship continually deepened. Eventually Father Francis interfered and forbade him to see or correspond with heruntil he was 21. Tolkien stoically obeyed this. He went to Exeter College, Oxford, in 1911 to stay and immerse himself in the Classics, Old English, Germanic languages, Welsh and Finish, until 1913, when he picked up his relationship with Edith. As a result of a second class degree in Honour Moderations, he changed from Classics to congenial English Language and Literature. He discovered this poem, the Crist of Cynewulf, in his Old English studies:

Eálá Earendel engla beorhtast
Ofer middangeard monnum sended

-"Hail Earendel brightest of angels, over Middle Earth sent to men."

This inspired some of his very early attempts at releasing a world of ancient beaty.

Tolkien did not wish to rush into the war that had broke out in August 1914, but he returned to Oxford, where he worked hard and achieved a first-class degree in June 1915. He was working on his invented languages, especially the one he called Qenya, but he still felt the lack of a thread to bring his imaginings together. He finally enlisted as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. He was eventually sent to duty on the Western Front, in time for the Somme offensive. He got "trench fever," a form of typhus-like infection common in the insanitary conditions, and was sent back to England. During this time, all but one of his TCBS friends had been killed in the war. He developed the Book of Lost Tales in which the major stories of the Silmarillion appear in their first forms.

Through 1917 and 1918, his illness kept recurring. It was when he was stationed at Hull that he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos and Edith danced for him. This was the inspiration for the tale of Beren and Lúthien. By this time his first son John Francis Reuel had already been born.

Tolkien had obtained the job of Assistant Lexicographer on the New English Dictionary (the Oxford English Dictionary) after the Armistice was signed in November of 1918. He didn't stay there long; he applied and was accepted for the Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds in 1920. At Leeds he continued writing and revising The Book of Lost Tales and his Elvish languages. Here Edith gave birth to his other sons: Michael Hilary Reuel (1920) and Christopher Reuel (1924). In 1925, he got the job as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. Edith gave birth to their last child and only daughter, Priscilla in 1929.

Tolkien continued with his mythology and languages. He told his children stories, some of which developed into his books. One day, when he was marking examination papers, he discovered that one student had left one page of an answer book blank. On this page, with no explanation, he wrote "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

From this he developed a story that he told to his younger children and around. It came to Susan Dagnall, an employee of the publishing firm of George Allen and Unwin in 1936, and she asked Tolkien to finish it and present it to Stanely Unwin, which he did. He tried it out on his 10 year old sun Rayner, who wrote an approving report, and it was published as The Hobbit in 1937. It was so successful that Stanely Unwin asked Tolkien if he had any other stories like it.

Thus he started writing The Lord of the Rings, which he never intended to be what it was: it just formed as he was typing. He was hoping to create this story as a continuum and explanation of The Silmarillion and his stories about Middle Earth. He created it as a history and mythology of England, because England didn't have a mythology all of it's own. It took him 12 years to finish and became the second most read book in the 20th Century, after the Bible.

The Lord of the Rings instantly became a cult classic, especially for college students at the time. There of course formed many fan clubs, and often one would see FRODO LIVES! inscripted somewhere. People would even legally adopt names of characters and send Tolkien letters about it. Tolkien was very displeased with this, and was especially horrified by the analogies people would think up from the books. He specifically has said that the story is not an allegory to England, World War II or anything.

Tolkien retired in 1969 and he and Edith moved to Bournemouth. Edith died on November 22, 1971, and Tolkien returned to Oxford. He died on September 2, 1971, and is buried with his wife in a single grave in the Catholic section of Wolvercote cemetery in the norther suburbs of Oxford.

Some/most information taken from the biography at tolkiensociety.org.