John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born to a bank manager father in South Africa. After his father's death in 1896, his mother took him and his younger brother to his father's native village of Sarehole, near Birmingham, England. The Midlands' landscapes and Nordic mythology may have inspired Tolkien's imaginative writing of 'the Shire' and 'hobbits' in his book the Hobbit.
After his mother's death in 1904, Tolkien was cared for by Father Francis Xavier Morgan, a RC priest. He was educated at King Edward VI school in Birmingham, then studied linguistics at Exeter College, Oxford, graduating with a B.A. in 1915. Tolkien fought in World War I with the Lancashire Fusiliers and may have drawn inspiration from his experiences during the Battle of the Somme for his darker novel themes.
Upon his return, he worked on the Oxford English Dictionary and earned his M.A. in 1919. He became a teacher in English at the University of Leeds in 1920, then moved to Merton College, Oxford, where he held the positions of Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon from 1925-45 and Merton professor of English Language and Literature from 1945-59.
Tolkien published his first scholarly work, an edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in 1925. He also wrote books on Chaucer and Beowulf. In 1939, he delivered the Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews, titled "On Fairy-Stories". However, he is most famous for his books the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, which took about 14 years to complete.
Tolkien discussed his novels with fellow Oxfordian and fantasy writer CS Lewis during their meetings, aiming to create a fantasy world to explain his invented languages. Despite his peers not considering his works 'cholarly', his books developed a legendary cult following after being published in paperback in the United States in 1965. Tolkien received honorary doctorates from the University of Liege and University College, Dublin, in 1954, and the CBE in 1972. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an honorary fellow of Exeter College.
