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Tolkien was Born
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born into a wealthy, Roman Catholic family, on this date in Bloemfontein, South Africa. His parents had left England soon before his birth, due to the fact that his father got a promotion and was forced into moving down there for his work. -
His Father Died of Rheumatic Fever
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Tolkien Travels to Switzerland
JRR detailed in a letter, many years after this trip, about how it influenced the writing of his stories. In the hobbit in particular, Bilbo's journey into the mountains and some of the specific experiences he has, came directly from Tolkien's experience he had that summer when he travelled through the Alps. -
TCBS was formed
Tolkien, along with three friends from school, formed a secret club that they named the "Tea Club and Barrovian Society". They would meet up, drink tea, and write poetry, and this played a large part in Tolkien's later passion for language and writing. -
Tolkien Started Studying at Oxford
He received a degree in English Language and Literature in 1915. He originally started out studying Classics but changed his major somewhere along the way. -
Enlisted in British Army
Tolkien decided to finish his degree before enlisting to fight in the British Army. He didn't really want to enlist, but the pressure and potential shame from his friends and relatives finally pushed him to join the fight. In a letter to his wife, he detailed his discontent with his superiors and the people he was surrounded by in general during his time in the army. -
Gets Married
John met Edith when he was 16 and she was 19. His father figure and guardian believed that she was tainting his education and prohibited him seeing her or communicating with her at all until he was 21 years old. He wrote to her as soon as he was 21, expressing his love to her and how they should get married. She was already engaged at the time, but admitted that she had always loved Tolkien more, and proceeded to drop her fiance and marry John instead. -
Tolkien gets Trench Fever
He was involved in the attack on the Regina Trench, and came down with "Trench Fever" which was a common disease carried by lice that thrived in the dirty, damp trenches of World War 1. This was the last time that Tolkien ever really fought in the war, as he came down with other health issues on top of the fever that prevented him from serving in the rest of the war. -
Left the Army, Started Teaching at Leeds
When Tolkien started teaching English at the University of Leeds, he was the youngest professor to ever teach there. During his time there, he published a few notable works, including "A Middle English Vocabulary," which ended up getting widely used for many years afterwards. -
Started Teaching at Oxford
Tolkien was hired as a professor of Anglo-Saxon, a position he held for quite a while. -
Finished Translation of Beowulf
Tolkien had been working on this complete translation since the beginning of the 1920's, and finished it sometime during 1926. For some reason, he never had it published. His son Christopher decided that it needed to be shared with the world though, and edited it and had the translation published in 2014. -
Beowulf: The Monsters and Critics gets published
It was no secret that parts of Tolkien's writing took direct influence from Beowulf, including major themes like the inclusion of monsters into fantasy writing. This essay was a commentary that Tolkien published on the famous poem, Beowulf, and is known today as one of the most influential literary analyses of the work to date. -
The Hobbit gets published
The Hobbit, which is the prequel story to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was first published on this date. Tolkien had started working on it in the summer of 1930, and 7 years later he finally finished writing. The book was successful and immediately became popular, so Tolkien began writing the sequel, "The Fellowship of the Ring", very soon after. -
"On Fairy Stories" is published
"On Fairy Stories" was an essay written by Tolkien about the adaptation of "fairy stories" and other similar fantasy works into a seriuos literary medium. It was originally published in a volume of essays put together by CS Lewis titled "Essays Presented to Charles Williams". -
Fellowship of the Ring first published
The first book in the famous trilogy was first published on this date. After 17 years of working on it and perfecting it, Tolkien was satisfied enough to produce a final product. The book starts in the land of the Hobbits, called "The Shire", at one particular Hobbit's birthday party. The story then follows a peculiar group of humans, hobbits, elves, and dwarves on their quest to bring the great ring of power to Mordor. This book ends with a cliffhanger, showing the potential death of Gandalf. -
The Two Towers first published
Tolkien had been working on all three of the books over the last 17 years, and while the content was pretty much all there when he published the Fellowship of the Ring, he spent a bit of time tweaking the stories and putting them together in the way that he thought made the most sense. This led to the progressive releases of the individual books in the trilogy over the span of a couple years. This book starts off where the first one left off, continuing to detail the journey of the same crew. -
The Return of the King first published
The third and final book in the trilogy, The Return of the King, was published at this time. This book was highly anticipated by fans of the first two, waiting to see how the long journey ended for the fantastic group of characters that the reader can't help but get attached to. -
Earned the Title of CBE
On this day, Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth. This is the third highest possible appointment that can be granted by the Queen, only succeeded by "Knight Commander" and "Knight Grand Cross" -
Tolkien Died
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien died on this date in the early 70's, not long after the death of his wife Edith. They were buried in the same grave. As you can see in the picture, the name Beren is underneath JRR's name, and Luthien is underneath Edith's. This was inspired by part of Tolkien's stories, in which there is a man named Beren and an elven woman named Luthien. They are in love, but since Luthien is immortal, Beren dies first, but she convinces the gods to bring him back to life. -
The Silmarillion gets published
The Silmarillion consists of an incomplete collection of work by Tolkien that goes into extensive detail about the world that his stories take place in. He created a vast history of languages and civilization that led up to the events in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He passed away before he got the chance to finish it, so his son Christopher decided to edit it and release it a couple years after his father's death.
