J R R Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien (John Ronald Reuel Tolkien) , 1892-1973, British novelist, b. South Africa. A fantasy writer and Oxford don, Tolkien wrote The Hobbit (1937), adapted from stories he told his children. Some of the characters from The Hobbit reappear in The Lord of the Rings (1954-55), a trilogy in which he details the life, history, and cosmology of the mythological Middle Earth, and for which he invented several languages, most notably Elvish. He was also a respected medieval scholar.

Bibliography: See H. Carpenter and C. Tolkien, ed., The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1988); biographies by H. Carpenter (1977, repr. 2000), L. E. Jones (2003), and M. White (2003); studies by R. Foster (rev. ed. 2001) and T. A. Shippey (rev. ed. 2003).

Tolkien, J. R. R., ( John Ronald Reuel Tolkien) (1892–1973), Merton professor of English language and literature at Oxford, 1945–59. He published a number of philological and critical studies, such as ‘Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics’ (in Proceedings of the British Academy, 1936), and became internationally known for two books based on a mythology of his own: The Hobbit (1937) and its sequel The Lord of the Rings (3 vols, 1954–5). The Silmarillion (1977), which has an earlier place in this sequence of stories, was published posthumously.

Tolkien, J.R.R. ( John Ronald Reuel) (1892–1973) British novelist and academic, b. South Africa. He was professor of Anglo-Saxon (1925–45) and English language and literature (1945–59) at Oxford University. Tolkien is chiefly celebrated for his novel The Hobbit (1937), the epic trilogy The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), and The Silmarillion (1977). These popular adventure stories are set in the fantasy world of Middle Earth.