Why did jrr tolkien die

Lewis and Owen Barfield. It was also at Oxford, while grading a paper, that he spontaneously wrote a short line about "a hobbit. He also created more than drawings to support the narrative. Over the years, while working on scholarly publications, Tolkien developed the work that would come to be regarded as his masterpiece — The Lord of the Rings series, partially inspired by ancient European myths, with its own sets of maps, lore and languages. The books gave readers a rich literary trove populated by elves, goblins, talking trees and all manner of fantastic creatures, including characters like the wizard Gandalf and the dwarf Gimli.

Tolkien retired from professorial duties in , going on to publish an essay and poetry collection, Tree and Leaf , and the fantasy tale Smith of Wootton Major. His wife Edith died in , and Tolkien died on September 2, , at the age of He was survived by four children. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series are grouped among the most popular books in the world, having sold tens of millions of copies.

Jackson also directed a three-part Hobbit movie adaptation starring Martin Freeman, which was released from to The Art of the Hobbit was published in , celebrating the novel's 75th anniversary by presenting Tolkien's original illustrations.

Underscoring the enduring popularity of Tolkien's famed fantasy world, in November , online retail and entertainment behemoth Amazon announced that it had acquired the TV rights for the book series.

The author's life was the subject of the feature Tolkien , a biopic starring Nicholas Hoult and steeped with references to The Lord of the Rings. When he was sixteen, he met Edith Bratt, three years his senior; the two were captivated with each other, but Fr. Francis forbade Ronald to see Edith. Despite his real love for Edith, Ronald obeyed.

In , on his second attempt, Ronald Tolkien succeeded in winning a scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied philology with the legendary Joseph Wright. On his twenty-first birthday, he wrote to Edith and renewed their relationship. They became engaged, and she converted to Catholicism. World War I broke out in , and Tolkien enlisted in the armed service in a special program that allowed him to complete his degree.

In , he took a First in English at Oxford, an accomplishment that assured him of a professional academic position. Edith and Tolkien were married in March , and in June, he joined the war in France. He was engaged in active combat at the front, and several of his school friends were among the catastrophic losses the British suffered.

In November, he was sent back to England to recover from trench fever; he suffered a relapse and was never sent back to France. During his convalescence, Tolkien — who had been writing poetry in imitation of Old and Middle English verse for some time — began writing the work that was eventually published in as The Silmarillion.

The Tolkiens' first child, John, was born in November A year later, Tolkien took a job as a researcher for the ambitious Oxford English Dictionary project, and the Tolkiens moved to Oxford. In the course of that work, he was recognized as being highly knowledgeable in linguistics. At this time, he also did private tutoring to earn extra money.

Gordon, with whom he collaborated on an edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight published The Tolkiens' second child, Michael, was born and their third, Christopher, in In , Tolkien was appointed Professor of the English Language at Leeds, although he was considered very young for the position. Tolkien also enjoyed an active social life with his colleagues at the university. He became a founding member of the all-male club known as the Inklings, who met frequently to talk, drink beer at the local taverns, and discuss writing.

Members included many authors, most famously C. Lewis, who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia. For many years, they convened at least once a week to read both their favorite literature and their own works in progress. From an early age, Tolkien pursued an active life of the imagination. In childhood, he and his brother Hilary would play at vanquishing evil dragons, and Tolkien added to his early mastery of Greek, Latin, Gothic, and Finnish, a talent for inventing languages of his own.

As a young man, he tried his hand at poetry, going so far as to publish a few pieces, but by the time he returned from the War, he had begun an ambitious collection of loosely connected stories, poems, and songs that told the history and legends of the elves, eventually known as The Silmarillion. After his children were born, he began enthusiastically telling them stories, many of which he wrote down.

For many years, he carefully composed and illustrated letters for his children from Father Christmas, detailing life and adventures in the frozen north. Then, while he was grading exam papers during the summer holiday to supplement his professor's salary, Tolkien wrote on a fortuitously blank page what became one of the most well-known opening sentences in English literature: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

In , the story was published by Allen and Unwin as The Hobbit. Much to Tolkien's surprise, The Hobbit became a successful children's book, receiving favorable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. Naturally, the publisher requested a follow up. To their dismay, it took Tolkien seventeen years to produce the requested sequel with another world war intervening , and the result was not another delightful children's story, but an epic saga of heroic struggle against evil that was over a thousand pages long.

Nevertheless, The Lord of the Rings was published in three volumes in and