J.R.R. Tolkien: Inspiring Lives E-Book

Robert S. Blackham

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Serie: Inspiring Lives
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 136

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

This first entry of a series covers the fascinating and enigmatic world of J.R.R. Tolkien, examining his place in literary history, his books and his iconic characters. The reader can explore facts and trivia from Tolkien's life and works, including his early life in southern Africa and Birmingham, Tolkien on the silver screen, his role in the two world wars and his friendship with C.S. Lewis, as well as the places that inspired his fictional world of Middle-earth. Both light-hearted and highly informative, this book offers an insight for new and old Tolkien fans into one of the great writers of the twentieth century.

Leseprobe

All images are from Robert S. Blackham’s collection, unless otherwise stated.

First published 2012

This edition published 2019

The History Press

97 St. George’s Place, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Robert S. Blackham, 2012, 2019

The right of Robert S. Blackham to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7524 9097 7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

• CONTENTS •

Introduction

The Tolkien Society

Timeline

1Tolkien and the Silver Screen

2Southern Africa

3Pipe Smoking in Fiction and Life

4Birmingham Days

5Ancient Landscapes and Myths

6Love and Marriage

7Clubs and Societies

8Plaques and Memorials

9Religious Faith

10The Real Middle-earth

11The Great Conflict: the First World War

12Principle Inhabitants of Middle-earth

13The Great Conflict: the Second World War

14C.S. Lewis

15Oxford Colleges

16Published Works of J.R.R. Tolkien

Bibliography

• INTRODUCTION •

WITH THE MAKING OF six blockbuster movies in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s most famous books, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Tolkien has reached an even greater audience than ever before; although he had already reached many millions of readers during his lifetime and after his death in 1973.

Born in southern Africa to English parents, Arthur and Mabel Tolkien, Tolkien travelled to England at the age of 3. His childhood, in and around the Birmingham area, was filled with love but also tragedy as he was an orphan by the age of 12.

King Edward’s School and religion, the Roman Catholic faith, became the bedrock of his teenage years in Birmingham and he was to meet his future wife, Edith Bratt, also an orphan, when he was aged 16. But the course of true love for the couple had many pitfalls as they were forcibly separated till Tolkien reached the age of 21.

Tolkien went and studied at Exeter College, Oxford between 1911 and 1915, and after achieving a first-class honours degree he was swept up by world events, joining the British Army and fighting in the First World War in the Battle of the Somme in France in 1916. Also that year he married Edith Bratt.

Tolkien’s military career was cut short by illness but during this time he started writing and creating his fictional world of Middle-earth, which was to be a lifelong project. After the war he returned to Oxford and then for a time was at the University of Leeds, returning to Oxford as a professor in 1925.

Tolkien lived in Oxford for most of the rest of his life and here his life followed many paths, as a father and family man to four children, as dedicated lecturer and tutor to his students, as an active member of Oxford literary groups like the Inklings, and as a writer. Tolkien not only wrote his great fantasy works but also poetry, literary criticism, philology and translation.

By the 1960s Tolkien’s fame was global due mostly to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but fame came at a cost as his private life was often plagued by over-enthusiastic ‘fans’ and this eventually drove him and Edith to leave Oxford.

This miscellany is designed to give new and old Tolkien fans, whether they have come to Tolkien though his books or the films, an insight into one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Many years after his death new generations are discovering his works and, with the global availability of the films of his books, most of the population of the world in the twenty-first century will know the name Tolkien.

• THE TOLKIEN SOCIETY •

J.R.R. Tolkien, Merton College, 1958. (Courtesy of Andy Compton. ADC Books)

THE TOLKIEN SOCIETY (FOUNDED by Vera Chapman in 1969 to further interest in the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien, CBE, the author of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and other works of fiction and philological study) is proud to have Robert Blackham as a member and a work such as this adding to the scholarship on our favourite author.

Based in the United Kingdom and registered as an independent, non-profit making charity, the society boasts an international membership in over forty countries. The society helps to bring together those with like minds, both formally and informally, with gatherings locally or nationally throughout the year. Recently we have been involved in weekend events in May based at Sarehole Mill and the setting up of the Shire Country Park, and we are continuing to work with other groups in the area on other Tolkien-related projects.

Our three main events at a national level are: the Annual General Meeting and Dinner, held in the spring in a different town or city in the UK each year; the Seminar, which takes place in the summer and presents a programme of talks on a Tolkien-related subject; and Oxonmoot, held over a weekend in September in an Oxford college, with a range of activities such as talks, discussions, slideshows and a costume party.

The society produces two publications: the bulletin, Amon Hen, appears six times a year, with Tolkien-related reviews, news, letters, artwork and articles, both humorous and serious; the annual journal, Mallorn, is more serious in nature, with longer critical articles, reviews and essays.

Within the society there are local groups spread throughout Britain and the world called ‘Smials’ (after hobbit homes). Here both members and non-members can gather to discuss Tolkien’s works, as well as other writers and topics. The formality and seriousness of meetings varies depending on the members. In addition to these there are Special Interest Groups that cover topics such as collecting, biography and Tolkien’s languages. For young members there is the active group ‘Entings’, which has its own section in the society bulletin.

The society has a website that provides members and non-members with general information about itself and the world of Tolkien: http://www.tolkiensociety.org.

The Tolkien Society, 2012Hon. Pres.: the late Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, CBEin perpetuoHon. Vice Pres. Priscilla TolkienFounded in 1969 by Vera Chapman

Registered Charity No. 273809

• TIMELINE •

1892 3 January

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (known as Ronald) born in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, southern Africa, to Arthur and Mabel Tolkien.

1894 17 February

Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien born.

1895 spring

Mabel and the Tolkien brothers come to England.

1896 15 February

Arthur Tolkien dies after suffering a severe haemorrhage.

1896 summer

Mabel and the Tolkien brothers move to the small hamlet of Sarehole on the edge of Birmingham.

1900

Mabel and the Tolkien brothers move to Moseley Village in Birmingham.

1901

Mabel and the Tolkien brothers move to King’s Heath in Birmingham.

1902

Mabel and the Tolkien brothers move to Oliver Road in Edgbaston, Birmingham.

1904 14 November

Mabel dies from diabetes at the age of 34.

1905

The Tolkien brothers move to Stirling Road in Edgbaston to live with their Aunt Beatrice.

1908

The Tolkien brothers move to Duchess Road, Edgbaston and Ronald meets Edith Bratt, his future wife.

1910

The Tolkien brothers move to Highfield Road, Edgbaston.

1911 October

Ronald goes to Exeter College, Oxford.

1913 8 January

Ronald is reunited with Edith Bratt in Cheltenham.

1915 summer

Ronald takes his final examinations and is awarded a first-class honours degree and then enters military service in the 13th Lancashire Fusiliers.

1916 22 March

Ronald marries Edith Bratt at St Mary Immaculate church in Warwick.

1916 4 June

Ronald embarks for France and takes part in the Battle of the Somme between July and October.

1916 November

Ronald returns to England with trench fever and does not go overseas again during the First World War.

1918 November

Ronald and Edith move to Oxford with their first son, John, and Ronald starts to work for the New English Dictionary.

1920 October

Ronald moves to the University of Leeds as reader in English Language and his second son, Michael, is born; his family join him in 1921.

1925 summer

Ronald is elected Rawlinson and Bosworth professor of Anglo-Saxon in Oxford and buys 22 Northmoor Road in north Oxford.

1929

Ronald and Edith’s daughter, Priscilla, is born.

1930

The Tolkien family move to 20 Northmoor Road.

1937

In the autumn The Hobbit is published and Ronald starts to write The Lord of the Rings.

1945 autumn

Ronald becomes Merton Professor of English and Literature and a fellow of Merton College Oxford.

1947

The Tolkiens move to Manor Road, Oxford.

1949

The Lord of the Rings is completed.

1950

The Tolkiens move to Holywell Street, Oxford.

1953

Ronald and Edith move to Sandfield Road in Oxford.

1954

The first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings are published.

1955

The third volume of The Lord of the Rings is published.

1959

Ronald retires from Merton College.

1968

Ronald and Edith leave Oxford to live in Lakeside Road, Poole.

1971

Edith dies aged 82.

1972

Ronald moves back to Oxford and lives in rooms on Merton Street.

1973

Ronald dies aged 81.

• 1 •

TOLKIEN AND THE SILVER SCREEN

THE STORY OF TOLKIEN’S works making it from the printed word to the film screen has as many twists and turns as the plots of his books, and the actual sums of money paid for the film rights may well be lost in the mists of time, in a far-off land, a long long time ago …

In 1964 William L. Snyder obtained the rights to The Hobbit and other works by Tolkien; these rights were to last until 30 June 1966 and the sum of money paid was always said to have been peanuts. Snyder got Gene Deitch, the animator behind Tom and Jerry, to work on making a feature-length animated movie of The Hobbit, and Deitch worked with Bill Bernal on the screenplay for the movie. It is said that the screenplay was loosely based on the book but that a female character was created in the form of a princess in order to tone down Bilbo Baggins’ bachelor status!

In early 1966 Deitch went to New York with a much-changed script for The Hobbit, having by this time read The Lord of the Rings. This was to be presented to 20th Century Fox, but Snyder asked for too much money and the deal fell through. But Snyder could see that there was money to be made from the film rights as by this time the Tolkien phenomenon had taken off. He got Deitch to make a 12-minute animated movie of The Hobbit; this was done in Prague and took thirty days to make, with the brilliant Czech illustrator Adolf Born working on the visual effects.

The film arrived in New York on 29 June 1966. Snyder had booked a small projector room in Manhattan and the 12-minute animated film of The Hobbit was shown on 30 June. Deitch literally went and got people off the street to come and see the film, giving them a dime, which they handed back to him to pay to see the film. After the showing, members of the audience were asked to sign a paper to say that they had paid to see the full-colour animated film of The Hobbit on 30 June 1966. Because of this, Snyder retained the film rights to all of Tolkien’s work and sold them back to Tolkien for around $100,000, a very large sum of money at the time. The 12-minute 35mm print of the film was rediscovered in January 2012 and can be seen on the internet (Google ‘Deitch Hobbit’).

Elven armour from The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. (Vëon Menelion/PKM at the Wikimedia Project/Wikimedia Commons)

Tolkien’s Aunt Grace, his father Arthur’s younger sister, told Tolkien tales of the Tolkien family roots in Europe and how one relation, George von Hohenzollern, had fought with Archduke Ferdinand at the Siege of Vienna in 1529. George had raided the Turkish lines and captured the sultan’s standard and had been give the nickname Tollkubn, which meant ‘foolhardy’, and this nickname persisted. The family had moved to France but in 1794 had fled to England to escape the French Revolution and had started to use the surname Tolkien.

The Tolkiens had blended into English life by the nineteenth century and had become clock, watch and piano makers. Piano making had been Tolkien’s grandfather John Benjamin Tolkien’s business in Birmingham but the business had become bankrupt in 1877.

There are tales that during the Beatles’ flower-power period they looked into making a film of The Lord of the Rings in which Paul McCartney was to play Frodo with John Lennon as Gollum, George Harrison as Gandalf, and Ringo Starr as Sam, however this did not make it to the silver screen.

Tolkien again sold the film rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in 1969 to United Artists, reputedly for $250,000 although some sources give a much lower sum of money. The money is believed to have been used to pay off a tax bill. Tolkien, and after his death the Tolkien Estate, retained a 7.5 per cent royalty for any future films made from the two books. United Artists employed John Boorman to produce a screenplay for The Lord of the Rings in 1970 but this never went into production.

A Gollum sculpture at the Wax Museum, Mexico City. (Vic201401/Wikimedia Commons)

In 1976 United Artists sold the film rights to Tolkien’s works to the Saul Zaentz Company. They, through a company called Middle-earth Enterprises, produced an animated film called The Lord of the Rings, which was released in 1978. The film was directed by Ralph Bakshi and is based on the first half of The Lord of the Rings; the film is made up of live footage and animation. The live footage is rotoscoped – a method where live images are traced on to cels (celluloid transparent sheets) to convert them into animations – giving the film a consistent look. The film received mixed reviews from the critics but was a financial success and in later years influenced Peter Jackson in the making of his The Lord of the Rings films.

But before this, an animated film entitled The Hobbit was released in 1977, produced by Rankin/Bass and directed by Arthur Rankin Jr and Jules Bass. The film ran for 78 minutes and could be said to have been the prequel to The Lord of the Rings. They released an animated movie of the third book of the trilogy, The Return of the King, in 1979; this film ran for 97 minutes, so was a much-compressed version of the book, but held the basic storyline together.

The Hobbit was not what you would call a planned book by Tolkien, but started one day when he was marking examination papers. A student had left a blank page and Tolkien wrote on the page ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit’ (H. Carpenter, ‘The Storyteller’, J.R.R. Tolkien: a Biography). Tolkien did not know what a Hobbit was but started writing the story in 1930/1931 and by 1932 he was able to show his friend C.S. Lewis an almost completed manuscript.

The Lord of the Rings