Tolkien << TOHL keen >>, J. R. R. (1892-1973), was an English author and scholar. He wrote a popular series of novels about an imaginary people called hobbits. Tolkien introduced the short, hairy-footed hobbits in his novel The Hobbit (1937). He continued their story in The Lord of the Rings, a novel in three volumes—The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), The Two Towers (1954), and The Return of the King (1955). Three immensely popular motion pictures based on the novel’s three volumes were released from 2001 to 2003. A series of three movies based on The Hobbit was released later, from 2012 to 2014. A television series titled “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” premiered in 2022. The series is set thousands of years before The Lord of the Rings is set. It is based on some of the background history that Tolkien described in his books.
Hobbits are industrious and good-natured. They live in a world called Middle-earth, along with elves, goblins, wizards, and human beings. In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, discovers a ring that conveys the power of invisibility but also corrupts the user. The hero of The Lord of the Rings is Frodo Baggins, Bilbo’s cousin. After many adventures, Frodo destroys the ring so that Sauron, the evil Dark Lord, cannot use it against the people of Middle-earth. Many critics have interpreted The Lord of the Rings as a symbolic moral or religious story about the battle between good and evil. But Tolkien insisted that he wrote the novel only as a fantasy to entertain readers.
In 1917, Tolkien began to write The Silmarillion, a history of Middle-earth before the hobbits appeared. He worked on the book occasionally for the rest of his life but died before publishing it. His son Christopher edited the novel and published it in 1977. A collection of previously unpublished material about Middle-earth and the legendary island of Númenor appeared in 1980 as Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, Tolkien wrote The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún, the story of a Norse hero and his wife. The book was published in 2009. Christopher Tolkien edited a 12-volume series of his father’s writings called The History of Middle-earth (1983-1996). Christopher also edited three stories of Middle-earth assembled from drafts his father left at his death. They are The Children of Húrin (2007), Beren and Lúthien (2017), and The Fall of Gondolin (2018). In addition, Christopher edited The Fall of Arthur (2013), a narrative poem about the legendary King Arthur that his father had left unfinished.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on Jan. 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, of English parents. From 1925 to 1959, he taught at Oxford University in England. He specialized in medieval languages and literature and wrote several scholarly works in this field. Tolkien’s hobbit stories show the influence of medieval English, German, and Scandinavian languages and literature. He died on Sept. 2, 1973.
