J. R. R. Tolkien Timeline

(January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973)

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was an English writer, philologist, and Oxford professor best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. A scholar of Old and Middle English and a veteran of World War I, he created Middle-earth, one of the most detailed and influential fictional worlds in literature, laying the foundation for modern fantasy fiction. More Less

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Early Life

Birth of J. R. R. Tolkien

Jan 3, 1892

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (present-day South Africa), to Arthur Tolkien, a bank manager, and Mabel Suffield. The family moved to England when he was three years old.

Image source: J. R. R. Tolkien

Death of Arthur Tolkien in South Africa

Feb 15, 1896

Tolkien's father died of rheumatic fever while still in Bloemfontein, leaving Mabel and her two sons in England with little income. This loss shaped the family's precarious financial circumstances during Tolkien's childhood.

Death of mother Mabel Tolkien

Nov 14, 1904

Tolkien's mother died of acute diabetes at the age of 34 after converting to Roman Catholicism, which estranged much of her family. Father Francis Morgan became guardian of the twelve-year-old Ronald and his brother Hilary.

Image source: Mabel Suffield Tolkien

Meets Edith Bratt at boarding house

Jan 1, 1908

At sixteen, Tolkien met and fell in love with Edith Bratt, nineteen, at the Birmingham boarding house where they both lived. Their guardian forbade contact until Tolkien turned twenty-one, delaying their courtship for years.

Image source: Edith Tolkien

Marries Edith Bratt

Mar 22, 1916

Tolkien married Edith Bratt at St Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Warwick shortly before being sent to fight in France during World War I. Their marriage lasted until Edith's death in 1971.

Death of Edith Tolkien

Nov 29, 1971

Edith Tolkien died at the age of 82 in Bournemouth. Grief-stricken, Tolkien had the name Lúthien engraved on her headstone, linking their love story to his greatest romance, Beren and Lúthien.

Academic Career

Wins scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford

Dec 1, 1910

Tolkien won an open classical scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford, where he began studying classics in 1911 before switching to English language and literature.

Image source: Exeter College, Oxford

Creates invented language 'Naffarin'

Jan 1, 1912

While at Oxford, Tolkien created one of his first constructed languages, Naffarin, part of his lifelong passion for philology that would later underpin Middle-earth's Elvish tongues such as Quenya and Sindarin.

Image source: Languages constructed by Tolkien

Works on the Oxford English Dictionary

Jan 1, 1919 - 1920

After demobilization, Tolkien worked as an assistant lexicographer on the Oxford English Dictionary, focusing on words beginning with W, honing the philological skills central to his later fiction.

Image source: Oxford English Dictionary

Becomes Professor at University of Leeds

Oct 1, 1920

Tolkien took up the post of Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, becoming the youngest professor there, where he collaborated with E. V. Gordon on a landmark edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Image source: University of Leeds

Publishes edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Jan 1, 1925

Tolkien and E. V. Gordon published a scholarly edition of the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which became a standard academic text for decades.

Image source: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Appointed Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor at Oxford

Jan 1, 1926

Tolkien returned to Oxford as Professor of Anglo-Saxon, a chair he held until 1945, establishing himself as one of the leading scholars of Old and Middle English of his generation.

Forms the literary club 'The Inklings'

Jan 1, 1926

Tolkien joined and helped shape an informal group of writers including C. S. Lewis, meeting regularly to read aloud drafts of their works; The Inklings provided crucial encouragement for The Lord of the Rings.

Image source: Inklings

Delivers lecture 'Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics'

Nov 25, 1936

Tolkien's groundbreaking British Academy lecture revolutionized Beowulf studies by treating the poem as a work of art rather than merely a historical document; it was published the following year.

Image source: Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics

Appointed Merton Professor of English Language and Literature

Jan 1, 1945

Tolkien moved from the Anglo-Saxon chair to the Merton Professorship at Oxford, which he held until his retirement in 1959, continuing his work on Middle-earth alongside scholarly duties.

Retires from Oxford

Jun 5, 1959

Tolkien retired from his professorship at Oxford, having taught there for over thirty years, allowing him more time to refine his legendarium and respond to his rapidly expanding readership.

World War I

Serves as signals officer in Battle of the Somme

Jul 1, 1916 - Oct 27, 1916

As a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers, Tolkien fought on the Western Front during the Somme offensive, experiencing the horrors of trench warfare that deeply influenced his depictions of war in Middle-earth.

Image source: Battle of the Somme

Returns to England with trench fever

Oct 27, 1916

Stricken by trench fever, Tolkien was evacuated back to England and spent long periods recovering in hospitals. During this convalescence he began composing the mythology later published as The Book of Lost Tales.

Literary Works

Writes 'The Tale of Tinúviel' at Great Haywood

Feb 1, 1917

During recovery from illness, Tolkien wrote his first story of his legendarium, inspired partly by watching Edith dance in a woodland glade — an episode later echoed in the tale of Beren and Lúthien.

Image source: The Book of Lost Tales

Writes 'The Tale of Tinúviel' at Great Haywood

Writes the famous sentence about hobbits on a blank page

Jan 1, 1930

While grading exam papers, Tolkien scribbled 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit' on a blank sheet, an impulse that grew into The Hobbit and eventually the whole Middle-earth saga.

Image source: The Hobbit

Publication of The Hobbit

Sep 21, 1937

Allen & Unwin published The Hobbit to immediate critical and commercial success, prompting the publisher to ask Tolkien for more stories set in the same world, leading directly to The Lord of the Rings.

Begins writing The Lord of the Rings sequel

Dec 16, 1937

Encouraged by the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien began drafting a sequel, a project that took over a decade to complete and expanded into a far darker and grander epic.

Image source: The Lord of the Rings

Publication of The Fellowship of the Ring

Jul 29, 1954

After years of delays caused by wartime paper shortages and Tolkien's perfectionism, Allen & Unwin released the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, launching one of the most influential novels ever written.

Image source: The Fellowship of the Ring

Publication of The Two Towers

Nov 11, 1954

The second volume of The Lord of the Rings appeared just months after the first, continuing the story of the War of the Ring and cementing the trilogy's growing popularity.

Image source: The Two Towers

Publication of The Return of the King

Oct 20, 1955

The final volume of The Lord of the Rings concluded the epic, though its extensive appendices delayed its release. The completed work gradually grew into a cultural phenomenon through the late 1960s.

Image source: The Return of the King

Publication of The Silmarillion

Sep 15, 1977

Four years after Tolkien's death, his son Christopher edited and published The Silmarillion, the sweeping mythological history of Middle-earth's First Age that Tolkien had worked on throughout his life.

Image source: The Silmarillion

Unfinished Tales published

Jan 1, 1980

Christopher Tolkien continued publishing his father's manuscripts with Unfinished Tales, a collection of stories and essays filling gaps in the histories of Middle-earth, beginning decades of posthumous releases.

Image source: Unfinished Tales

Legacy

Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Jan 1, 1956

Following the publication of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien received numerous honors, including election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in recognition of his contributions to letters.

Image source: Royal Society of Literature

Lord of the Rings becomes a bestseller in paperback

Jan 1, 1965

An unauthorized American paperback edition and the subsequent authorized Ballantine release turned The Lord of the Rings into a massive bestseller among young readers, making Tolkien a reluctant celebrity.

Awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Jan 1, 1972

Queen Elizabeth II appointed Tolkien a CBE in recognition of his services to literature, one of several honors bestowed upon him late in life as his fame reached worldwide proportions.

Image source: Order of the British Empire

Death of J. R. R. Tolkien

Sep 2, 1973

Tolkien died at age 81 in Bournemouth after suffering an acute ulcer bleed. He was buried beside Edith at Wolvercote Cemetery in Oxford, his headstone bearing the names Beren and Lúthien.

Key Facts

Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, but was raised in England after his father's death.
He served as a second lieutenant in the British Army during World War I and fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, experiences that influenced his depictions of war in his fiction.
A distinguished academic, Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and later Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University.
The Hobbit was published in 1937, followed by his masterpiece The Lord of the Rings, published in three volumes between 1954 and 1955.
Tolkien invented entire constructed languages, including Elvish tongues like Quenya and Sindarin, and developed Middle-earth's deep history, mythology, and geography over decades of writing.

Source

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