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"For some time I lived in fear of receiving a letter signed 'S. Gollum'. That would have been more difficult to deal with."
-J. R. R. Tolkien, on receiving a letter from a real Sam Gamgee |
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In honor of a birthday I'm betting few of you marked, I've decided to dedicate this newsletter to:
** Image ID #1053849 Unavailable **
J. R. R. Tolkien
(1892-1973)
In the early 1930s, a middle aged professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at Oxford University was grading examination papers... "One of the candidates had mercifully left one of the pages with no writing on it (which is the best thing that can possibly happen to an examiner) and I wrote on it: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit'. Names always generate a story in my mind. Eventually a I thought I'd better find out what hobbits were like. But that's only the beginning." (J.R.R. Tolkien, on the creation of The Hobbit)
From this single sentence, the beloved author we know today as J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a children's book called The Hobbit, and after that what he first called "The New Hobbit", a book that eventually became The Lord of the Rings.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (pronounced "Tol-keen") was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa on January 3, 1892. His memories of Africa are few, as he, his mother and his younger brother Hilary returned to England in 1896 upon the death of his father on February 15 of that year. One thing he did remember with vivid clarity, was an encounter with a particularly large, hairy spider.
In 1900, a profound change occurred that would affect the Tolkiens for the rest of their lives. They converted to Roman Catholicism, estranging them from the rest of their family in England. Ronald, as he was then known to family and friends, would remain a devout Catholic the rest of his life.
Class-wise, the Tolkien family was considered genteel, but they were poor and the situation only worsened in 1904 when young Ronald was 12 years old. His mother, Mabel, was diagnosed with diabetes, almost always fatal in those pre-insulin days. She died on November 14 of that year, leaving the two Tolkien brothers effectively destitute. Fortunately, a caring parish priest, Father Francis Morgan, made sure that the boys received material as well as spiritual care. They lived in a boarding house with an aunt by marriage and then with a Mrs. Faulkner.
Even at this early age, Ronald showed considerable linguistic aptitude. He had already mastered Latin and Greek, a necessary for the education of that time, and was more than competent in other languages, both modern and ancient. He was even making up his own languages for fun.
When Ronald was 16, he met a young woman at Mrs. Faulkner's boarding house named Edith Bratt, who was 19. They became friends and gradually something more. Father Francis, perhaps not approving of a relationship at so young a age, forbade Ronald to see or correspond with Edith for three years, until he was 21. Ronald obeyed and went to Exeter College, Oxford in 1911 where he immersed himself in the Classics, Old English, Germanic languages, Welsh, and Finnish. In 1913, he picked up the threads of his relationship with Edith.
One interesting poem he read in the course of his studies in Old English inspired early thoughts about the stories we know and love today (from the Crist of Cynewulf):
Eálá Earendel engla beorhtast
Ofer middangeard monnum sended
Translation: Hail Earendel brightest of angels, over Middle Earth sent to men. ("Middangeard" was a ancient expression for the everyday world between Heaven above and Hell below.)
In 1915, Tolkien achieved a first-class degree from Oxford and later that same year, enlisted as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. At the same time he had invented a language he called Quenya, based heavily on Finnish, and was also working on ideas about Earendel the Mariner. For many boring months Tolkien was kept in England, but when it finally appeared that they would embark for war, he married Edith on March 22, 1916.
Tolkien was sent to active duty on the Western front in time for the Somme offensive. He was eventually sent home to England after four months in trenches that gave him "trench fever", a typhus-like sickness common in the unsanitary conditions of trench life. Once recovered, however, he was sent back.
Stirred to action to the horrors of his war experience and the death of many childhood friends, he started putting his stories to shape, sometimes even while under fire in a dugout. These stories eventually became what we know as The Book of Lost Tales that was not published in his lifetime. In these tales appear some major stories of the Silmarillion in their first forms.
Periods of remission in his illness throughout 1917 and 1918 enabled him to do home service at various camps. During this time, he and Edith went walking in the woods and in a grove of hemlock, Edith danced for him. This was the inspiration for the tale of Beren and Luthien. Their first son was also born in this time, John Francis Reuel Tolkien on November 16, 1917.
After the Armistice, Tolkien applied for a senior post in English Language at the University of Leeds and was appointed. His tenure at Leeds saw the birth of two more sons: Michael Hilary Reuel in October 1920 and Christopher Reuel in 1924. In 1925 a post in a professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford fell open and Tolkien successfully applied for it.
Edith gave birth in 1929 to their last child and only daughter, Priscilla. Tolkien got into the habit of writing letters to the children as if from Santa Claus (published posthumously in 1976 as The Father Christmas Letters) and also bedtime stories. The Tolkien family lived quietly in a small suburb of North Oxford.
Around 1933, Tolkien became one of the founding members of a group of Oxford friends who called themselves "The Inklings." They met frequently at a local pub to exchange conversation, drink, and frequent readings from their writings. Among the members were Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, and, above, all, C.S. Lewis who became one of Tolkien's closest friends. They did not often agree about their writing, but their friendship remained enough that Tolkien said upon learning about Lewis' death in 1963: "So far I have felt the normal feelings of a man of my age--like an old tree that it losing all its leaves one by one: this [death] feels like an axe-blow near the roots."
The Hobbit emerged after Tolkien's first scribbling the sentence upon the page and further stories to his children. He sent an incomplete manuscript to a publisher who liked it well enough that they asked him to finish it. The Hobbit was published in 1937 and was an immediate hit. It has not been out of print since. The story about Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Gray, and Smaug was so successful that the publisher asked if Tolkien had anything else about the same world and characters.
By this time, Tolkien's "other" world (the one he had been writing ever since the War) had achieved a more complete form and hints of it had found its way into The Hobbit. He called this work Quenta Silmarillion; Silmarillion for short. The publisher tactfully told Tolkien that the material wasn't quite what he was looking for and asked if he could write a sequel to The Hobbit.
Tolkien agreed to take up the challenge and the history of The Lord of the Rings could probably fill another newsletter. The shortened version, however, is that the publisher, despite its doubts on the size and scope of the manuscript submitted, agreed to publish it in three separate books, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.
To the publisher's and Tolkien's surprise, sales exceeded their expectations so much that Tolkien began to regret not taking an early retirement. Reviews ranged from ecstatic (W.H. Auden, C.S. Lewis) to contemptuous (E. Wilson, P. Toynbee).
America, of course, was in the middle of the heady 60s and The Lord of the Rings became an immediate cult classic. On one hand Tolkien was amazed at the popularity and how rich he became, on the other hand calls and visits from fans became so intrusive (gawking at his house, calling at 3 a.m. to demand to know of Frodo finished the Quest) that the Tolkiens moved to a quieter neighborhood and changed their phone number.
On November 22, 1971, Edith died and Ronald followed her two years later on September 2, 1973. They are buried together in a single grave in the Catholic section of a cemetery in the northern suburbs of Oxford. The legend on the headstone reads:
Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889-1971
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892-1973 |
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From: nadjaanderson
Thank you so much for including my books (their humble beginnings anyway  ) in your editor's picks! I always look forward to the editorials, and I was having myself a good chuckle at this one when I saw my novels listed. For a moment I thought I was in an alternate reality, but they were still there after I pinched myself, so I figured it wasn't a fluke. And there was such a convenient tie-in to the subject of prophesy.
Anywho, long story short--thanks! I was really excited to see my work featured!
nadja
You're very welcome  . They deserve to be spotlighted.
From: Ron  
Hey there, thanks for responding to my question. I must admit that it wasn't what I expected, but it's gd enough. Keep up with the great newsletters!:)
Thanks Ron! I don't think the topic is quite exhausted though, so perhaps in the future there'll be a part II.
From: scribbler
I hate prophecies, and at the same time I love them. But I usually use them as a bit extra, on the side. They do not need to hog all the spotlight all the time. Because honesty that is when prophecies become cliche.
Good point. Use it, but don't abuse it.
From: Starr Phenix 
Congratulations on the NaNo win!
Thank you! 
From: Puditat
Erin, a huge congrats on completing the NaNoWriMo! Anybody who completes the word count in a month deserves applause, a good sleep and massage. Well done!
Thank you! I still can't believe I did it.
From: billwilcox
Prophecy...I foresee Erin writing an excellent Fantasy Newsletter--she was born to do it. And Behold! The prophecy has been fullfilled
LOL! Thanks Bill, I guess I should seek your prophetic abilities more often . |
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Fantasy: January 11, 2006 Issue [#813]
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