The Hobbit

Introduction

The general public has known for some time (through biographies and commentaries) that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien carried on an extensive correspondence, much of it directed to his son Christopher Tolkien during World War II. Prior to his entering the service, Christopher had been an auditor of the growing Lord of the Rings (1954-1955); father and son were close, and Christopher had even drafted maps of Middle Earth in the Third Age, illustrating the progressing work. Christopher's overseas duty coincided with a period when The Lord of the Rings was undergoing rapid expansion almost an explosion of character and incident. It has likewise been known that many comments about The Lord of the Rings found their way into these heartfelt letters from a father to a son who had shared his tastes and enthusiasms. When Humphrey Carpenter published his authorized biography entitled Tolkien: A Biography (1977), he quoted from many of these letters and referred to many more. Now almost 430 pages of that correspondence is available for the study of admirers of The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion (1977), and whatever parts remain to be published of that vast and original mythology. Readers of these letters will gain a deeper understanding of Tolkien, a complex man of strong emotions, loyalties, aversions, and friendships (Shippey, 117).

Biography of J.R.R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontain, Orange, South Africa on January 3, 1892 and his brother Arthur Hillary two years later. After the 1896 death of his father, Arthur Tolkien, moved with his mother to England. When her mother died in 1904 because of diabetes the brothers go to live with an aunt in Birmingham, but the priest Francis Morgan who is entrusted with the care and upbringing of the two brothers. From that moment the father Morgan became his tutor and mentor.

In 1908 he began his first year at Exeter College, Oxford, where he met Edith Bratt, with whom it entered the year World War I broke out (1914). Two years after marrying but Tolkien is sent to the war in France. At the end of 1916 returned to England with "trench fever" in addition to injuries caused by a grenade. In 1917 first trip to a serious story The Silmarillion , which would leave unfinished and not published until 1977. During that year his first born son, John (Tolkien, 85).

After the war he returned with his family to Oxford, where it joins the group that produced the New English Dictionary . In 1920 born his second son, Michael, born in 1924 his third son, Christopher, and in 1929 his youngest daughter, Priscilla. From an early age became interested in language, especially those in northern Europe and from there came one of his hobbies: inventing languages. His main professional interest was the study of Anglo-Saxon language and its relation to other languages ??of the same origin. He was an expert in the literature that was written in those languages. Medieval English literature professor at the ...