J. R. R. Tolkien

Introduction

J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, better known as J. R. R. Tolkien, was a unique, devout, and deeply learned man. And he also just happened to be the most influential fantasy author of the twentieth century. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy changed the genre forever, spawning dozens of imitators and establishing what would become the standard format for fantasy novels: current authors still create alternative cultures and realities, throw in detailed maps and invented languages, and continue story lines across multiple volumes. Tolkien’s influence, however, spread far beyond the literary. The bookish and conservative don also became an inspiration to the 1960s counter-culture who saw his “Middle-earth” as embodying their ecological and communitarian ideals. It seems, then, that Tolkien’s work remains the one thing that everyone can appreciate.

Essential Facts

1. Though his work is very British, Tolkien was actually born in South Africa. He moved to England with his mother and brother after his father died. Tolkien was 4 years old at the time.
2. Tolkien was a member of The Inklings, an informal but talented group of readers and writers that included C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams, two other major twentieth-century fantasists.
3. An immensely gifted linguist, Tolkien spoke and/or wrote Greek, Gothic, Finnish, Old English, and other languages. He also contributed to the Oxford English Dictionary and taught Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University.
4. Tolkien fought in World War I, serving on the Western Front. Luckily for the literary world, he contracted a typhus-like infection called “trench fever” and had to recover in England for a few months. During that period, all but one of his closest friends on the Western Front died.
5. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has been adapted into cartoons, comic books, audio versions, and, in recent years, a trilogy of live-action movies directed by Peter Jackson. All together Jackson’s film adaptations won seventeen Academy Awards.