48 Fun Facts About J. R. R. Tolkien

In which city was J. R. R. Tolkien born in 1892?

Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, on 3 January 1892, where his father Arthur managed the local branch of the Bank of Africa; he died of rheumatic fever in 1896 before rejoining the family in England.

What bit the infant Tolkien in the garden in South Africa?

As a toddler Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the family garden in South Africa; he later said he had no memory of it, though readers see the bite echoed in Shelob and the spiders of Mirkwood.

Tolkien's aunt Jane's farm gave its name to which place in his fiction?

Bag End was the local name of his aunt Jane Neave's farm at Dormston, Worcestershire, which Tolkien visited; he borrowed it for Bilbo's home under the Hill.

Which children's book did the young Tolkien dislike?

As a boy Tolkien disliked Treasure Island, Hans Andersen's stories and The Pied Piper; he found Alice merely amusing and loved George MacDonald's Curdie books and Andrew Lang's Fairy Books.

Tolkien's mother Mabel died in 1904 of what, when he was 12?

Mabel Tolkien died of acute diabetes in November 1904, aged 34, when insulin treatment was nearly two decades away; her family had cut off support after she became a Catholic in 1900.

Who became guardian of the orphaned Tolkien brothers?

Father Francis Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory became the brothers' guardian under Mabel's will; Tolkien called him 'an upper-class Welsh-Spaniard Tory' from whom he 'first learned charity and forgiveness'.

Tolkien's first encounter with an invented language was Animalic, created by whom?

Animalic was invented by his cousins Mary and Marjorie Incledon, built mostly from English animal names; Tolkien and Mary then made Nevbosh, and he went on to his own Naffarin.

What did the initials of Tolkien's semi-secret school group, the T.C.B.S., stand for?

T.C.B.S. stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, after the tea the boys brewed in the school library and later drank at Barrow's Stores; two of its core members were killed in 1916.

Tolkien said Bilbo's crossing of the Misty Mountains was based on his own 1911 hike where?

In summer 1911 Tolkien's party of 12 walked through the Swiss Alps from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, Mürren and the Aletsch glacier; he said the Silberhorn became 'the Silvertine of my dreams'.

Where at Oxford did Tolkien study from 1911, graduating with first-class honours in 1915?

Tolkien went up to Exeter College, Oxford, in October 1911, started in Classics and switched in 1913 to English Language and Literature, taking first-class honours in 1915.

How did the teenage Tolkien and Edith Bratt amuse themselves in Birmingham teashops?

They moved to the next table when the sugar bowl ran out; both were orphans, and by summer 1909 they were in love.

Until what age did Father Morgan forbid Tolkien to contact Edith?

As midnight began his 21st birthday, 3 January 1913, Tolkien wrote to Edith proposing; she was engaged to George Field but broke it off and accepted him.

Where did Tolkien and Edith talk under a railway viaduct in January 1913, ending with her accepting his proposal?

On 8 January 1913 they met at Cheltenham, where Edith was living, and walked out to talk under a railway viaduct; she agreed to marry Tolkien and returned George Field's ring.

Tolkien and Edith married in March 1916 at a Catholic church in which town?

They married on 22 March 1916 at St Mary Immaculate, the Catholic church in Warwick, where Edith had moved in 1913; Tolkien admired her for marrying a man with no job, little money and a war ahead.

Tolkien was commissioned in 1915 into which regiment?

Tolkien was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers in July 1915 and served as signals officer of its 11th Battalion, feeling a lasting affinity for his working-class Lancashire men.

How did Tolkien let Edith track his movements in France despite army censorship?

Army censors barred place names, so Tolkien worked out a code of dots in his letters that told Edith where he was; she followed his movements on a map of the Western Front.

Which illness sent Tolkien home from the Somme in November 1916?

Trench fever, spread by body lice, struck Tolkien on 27 October 1916 after his battalion's attack on Regina Trench; he was shipped to England on 8 November and never returned to the front.

Which T.C.B.S. member was killed leading his men on the first day of the Somme?

Rob Gilson, a lieutenant in the Cambridgeshire battalion of the Suffolk Regiment, was killed on 1 July 1916 leading his men across no man's land near La Boisselle; Tolkien heard the news from Geoffrey Smith.

While recovering in Staffordshire, Tolkien began writing what, starting with The Fall of Gondolin?

The Book of Lost Tales, begun at Great Haywood in early 1917 with The Fall of Gondolin, was Tolkien's first attempt at a mythology for England; he abandoned it and reworked the stories for decades.

Edith's dance in a hemlock glade at Roos, Yorkshire, inspired which tale?

'I never called Edith Luthien—but she was the source of the story,' he wrote after her death; the names are on their gravestone.

Tolkien's first civilian job after the war was working on which letter of the Oxford English Dictionary?

Tolkien joined the Oxford English Dictionary staff after the war and worked on words of Germanic origin beginning with W, such as walrus, wasp and warlock; he then earned extra by tutoring students from the women's colleges.

At which university did Tolkien become the youngest member of academic staff in 1920?

At Leeds Tolkien was appointed Reader in English Language in 1920, the youngest member of staff, and became Professor in 1924; there he wrote A Middle English Vocabulary and co-edited Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Tolkien returned to Oxford in 1925 as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of what?

The Rawlinson and Bosworth chair is in Anglo-Saxon; Tolkien held it from 1925 to 1945 with a Pembroke College fellowship, and wrote The Hobbit at his home at 20 Northmoor Road.

Tolkien's 1936 lecture, a turning point in scholarship on an Old English poem, was titled what?

Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, his 1936 Gollancz Memorial Lecture to the British Academy, argued the monsters were central to the poem's art; his own prose Beowulf translation, finished in 1926, appeared only in 2014.

In January 1939 Tolkien was earmarked for what wartime role?

The Foreign Office's Government Code and Cypher School earmarked Tolkien as a potential codebreaker in January 1939; he took a training course at its London headquarters in March but was told in October his services were not required.

In which year did Tolkien finish drafting The Lord of the Rings?

Tolkien finished drafting the last chapters in a summer 1948 retreat and wrote that autumn that he had brought The Lord of the Rings 'to a successful conclusion'; revision and typing of the final text ran into 1949.

How many children did Tolkien and Edith have?

John, Michael, Christopher and Priscilla; he sent them illustrated letters from Father Christmas each year.

Who nominated Tolkien for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961?

Lewis was his closest friend among the Inklings, and Tolkien had been a key influence on Lewis's conversion to Christianity.

Why did the Tolkiens move to Bournemouth in retirement?

He missed the Inklings badly; fan attention had already forced him to remove his phone number from the directory.

Which book of the Bible did Tolkien translate for The Jerusalem Bible (1966)?

He had been assigned much more but other commitments left him time only for Jonah and some criticism of colleagues' work.

What honour did Tolkien receive at Buckingham Palace in March 1972?

Tolkien was appointed CBE in the 1972 New Year Honours and received the insignia from the Queen at Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1972; Oxford gave him an honorary doctorate that June.

In which Oxford cemetery are Tolkien and his wife Edith buried?

Tolkien and Edith share a grave in the Catholic section of Wolvercote Cemetery in north Oxford; Edith was buried there in 1971 and Tolkien joined her in September 1973.

Tolkien died in September 1973 of what?

Taken ill while visiting friends in Bournemouth, Tolkien was found to have a bleeding gastric ulcer; a chest infection followed and he died on 2 September 1973, aged 81.

Tolkien described his political leanings as tending 'more and more to' what?

In a 1943 letter Tolkien wrote that his opinions leaned 'more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)' or to unconstitutional monarchy; elsewhere he said he was 'not a democrat'.

Which side did Tolkien support in the Spanish Civil War?

Tolkien backed Franco's Nationalists after hearing of Republican killings of priests and nuns; he admired the pro-Franco Catholic poet Roy Campbell and dismissed his friends' anti-Franco remarks as 'Red propaganda'.

Which real language did Tolkien say formed the 'basis' on which Quenya was composed?

Tolkien wrote that Quenya was 'composed on a Latin basis with two other (main) ingredients that happen to give me phonaesthetic pleasure: Finnish and Greek'; Sindarin, the other developed Elvish tongue, drew on Welsh.

Which future fantasy novelist helped Christopher Tolkien shape The Silmarillion for its 1977 publication?

Guy Gavriel Kay, a young Canadian, worked with Christopher Tolkien in 1974-75 assembling The Silmarillion from his father's drafts; Kay went on to write The Fionavar Tapestry and Tigana.

To which American institution did Tolkien sell the manuscripts of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings?

Marquette University in Milwaukee bought the manuscripts of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Farmer Giles of Ham and Mr. Bliss in 1957, a deal arranged by its librarian William Ready; the Silmarillion papers went to the Bodleian Library.

To which company did Tolkien sell the film, stage and merchandise rights of his Middle-earth books in 1968?

Tolkien sold the film, stage and merchandise rights to United Artists in 1968; UA never produced a film itself, shelving John Boorman's live-action plan, and sold the rights on to Saul Zaentz in 1976.

Who directed the first film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, an animated rotoscoped feature in 1978?

Ralph Bakshi directed the 1978 rotoscoped The Lord of the Rings, which stopped midway through The Two Towers; Rankin/Bass had made an animated Hobbit in 1977 and covered the ending in their 1980 The Return of the King.

In the BBC's 2003 'Big Read' survey, The Lord of the Rings was found to be what?

The BBC's 2003 Big Read placed The Lord of the Rings first as the UK's best-loved novel, ahead of Pride and Prejudice; a German ZDF poll of about 250,000 readers reached the same verdict in 2004.

Which artist included Tolkien in his 2012 reworking of the Sgt. Pepper cover?

Blake designed the original 1967 Beatles sleeve.

Which schoolboy book by his later Oxford tutor Joseph Wright inspired Tolkien?

As a schoolboy Tolkien acquired Joseph Wright's Primer of the Gothic Language and fell in love with Gothic; at Oxford Wright became his tutor in comparative philology, and Tolkien later taught Gothic and Old Icelandic himself.

Tolkien's early poem The Lonely Isle was inspired by what?

The Lonely Isle, addressed to England seen from the sea, was inspired by Tolkien's troopship crossing to Calais in June 1916, on his way to the Somme.

Which Oxford pub was the Inklings' regular Tuesday meeting place?

The Inklings met at The Eagle and Child on St Giles', nicknamed the Bird and Baby, from 1939 until 1962, when they moved across the road to the Lamb and Flag.

Which posthumous 1980 collection was assembled from Tolkien's more fragmentary writings?

Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, published in 1980, gathered incomplete narratives and essays such as the tale of Tuor and the Istari essay; the twelve-volume History of Middle-earth followed from 1983.

Which illustrator, Tolkien's favourite for Farmer Giles of Ham, was personally known to him?

Pauline Baynes illustrated Farmer Giles of Ham in 1949 to Tolkien's delight, then The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and a poster map of Middle-earth; she also drew the Narnia books.

Tolkien's 1925 Sir Gawain edition was co-produced with which fellow scholar?

E. V. Gordon, Tolkien's colleague in the English department, co-edited Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with him in 1925, the standard edition for decades; Tolkien's own translations of Gawain, Pearl and Sir Orfeo appeared in 1975.