![]() ![]() When he was 12, his mother died and a Catholic priest became his legal guardian, though he lived with relatives and in boarding houses. ![]() He was also deeply affected by the countryside where he grew up in happiness but relative poverty, and later with the contrast it made with the industrial towns where he attended King Edward's School. This deeply affected Tolkien, who remained a devout Catholic for life. ![]() His mother struggled to raise Ronald and his brother alone, as she was ostracized by her family after becoming Roman Catholic. His father died when he was just three years old, soon after his mother had brought their family to England on what was supposed to be just an extended visit, and there they stayed for good. Tolkien, known to most friends and family as Ronald, had somewhat of a troubled background. The Children of Húrin is an exception, a standalone narrative expanding on one of the Silmarillion stories. Later books published over the years have instead presented his concepts and stories as they evolved, along with editorial commentaries. The myth cycle called The Silmarillion - which Tolkien considered his "main" work, with the other two books as just spinoffs, yet never completed to his satisfaction - was edited from decades' worth of manuscripts to form a consistent narrative. Most of his fiction in this setting has been published posthumously, despite most of it being written earlier than his most well-known books. He is mainly known for his tales of "Middle-earth", most famously The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings. The man who brought High Fantasy (and, it could be argued, literary Speculative Fiction as a whole) to the modern public. English linguist (born in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State), university professor (Leeds and Oxford), Anglo-Saxon historian, CBE, and writer. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973). The Guardian, concerning The Silmarillion ![]()
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