JRR Tolkien

1892

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is born on 3 January to British parents, Mabel and Arthur Tolkien , in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (now South Africa).

1896

Arthur Tolkien dies, Mabel Tolkien, visiting England with her two sons, decides to remain there; they move to the hamlet of Sarehole near Birmingham, where they will live for four years.

1900

Mabel Tolkien converts to Roman Catholicism; Tolkien himself will be a devout Catholic all his life. He begins to attend King Edward's School in Birmingham. Already he shows an aptitude for languages.

1904

Mabel Tolkien dies, and Father Francis Morgan, a Catholic priest, becomes guardian of her sons.

1908

Tolkien meets Edith Bratt, his future wife.

1911

Tolkien visits Switzerland. He goes up to Exeter College, Oxford to study Classics, but in 1913 will change his course to English Language and Literature.

1915

After achieving first-class honours in his final English examinations , Tolkien enlists in the Army. He is commissioned a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. His poem 'Goblin Feet' in Oxford Poetry 1915 is his first publication in a book.

1916

Tolkien and Edith Bratt are married; between 1917 and 1929 they will have three sons and a daughter.

Tolkien serves in the Battle of the Somme; after a few months he is sent home with 'trench fever'. Two of his closest friends die in the war.

1917

Tolkien begins to write The Book of Lost Tales, the first prose version of his 'Silmarillion' mythology.

1919-20

Tolkien is on the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary, and more Oxford undergraduates.

1920-25

Tolkien is Reader in English Language and then Professor of English Language at the University of Leeds.

1921

A Middle English Vocabulary, Tolkien's first major academic work, is published.

1925

Sir Garvain and the Green Knight, co-edited by Tolkien is published. Tolkien becomes Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford.

1936

Tolkien delivers his landmark British Academy lecture, 'Beowulf': The Monsters and the Critics'.

1937

Tolkien's children's story The Hobbit is published with pen drawings and a dust-jacket by the author. A second printing this year adds colour illustrations by Tolkien. Asked for a sequel he begins to write The Lord of the Rings.

1939

Tolkien delivers an influential lecture, 'On Fairy-Stories', at the University of St Andrews.

1945

Tolkien is elected merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford.

1948

Tolkien finishes the narrative of The Lord of the Rings at last. He now begins to write its Appendices.

1954

The first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers) are published in July and October. Although a single work, it has been divided into three to spread the cost.

1955

The final volume of The Lord of the Rings (The Return of the King) is published in October.

1959

Tolkien retires from his Oxford professorship.

1962

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is published. This is a book of miscellaneous poems by Tolkien, which he now relates to The Lord of the Rings.

1965

In response to an unauthorized American paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien revises the work. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings now achieve cult status in the U.S.A.

1968

Tolkien and his wife move from Oxford to Poole on the south coast, partly for the sake of Edith's health, but also to escape the attention of fans.

1971

Edith Tolkien dies.

1972

Tolkien returnsto Oxford. He is awarded the CBE. Oxford University confers upon him an honorary Doctorate of Letters.

1973

JRR Tolkien dies in Bournemouth on 2 september. An edition of his life's-work, The Silmarillion, will be published in 1977.