John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is perhaps one of the best known authors of the club. As a child he lived in a comfortable sort of poverty in England until his mothered died. He and his brother were taken in by a priest for a time, and then an estranged and cool aunt. Even in his youth Tolkien was excelling in the written arts, mastering Latin and Greek before sixteen years old. As an adult he married his long-lost, childhood sweetheart and had four children. Upon his absence he would write them letters often ornately illustrated and addressed from Santa. These letters were later on published in 1976. After his children moved away and began lives of their own Tolkien found himself pining for an education; viewing it as an escape from the real world. Shortly before meeting the group of authors and poets called the inklings he had joined the University of Oxford as a professor of English and Literature. In working with the Inklings Lewis captivated young and old with mystical worlds paralleling God and the pursuit of virtue while Tolkien simply thrust his generation and every one that has followed into a fantastical universe. Many of his stories, particularly the first Lord of the Rings book, generated a sense of authenticity which in fact caused an eruption in cult-like followings in the 1960’s. David Doughan, who contributes to the Tolkien Society online, commented on this phenomenon saying that “The Lord of the Rings had almost become the Bible of the ‘Alternative Society’.” In the sixties it was considered the ultimate trip to Middle Earth to lose one’s self in reading his trilogy while taking in LSD. Eventually Tolkien experienced what our movies stars endure today; a constant onslaught of fans and stalkers asking for maps to the lost world among other nonsense. Tolkien finally retired to Bournemouth in secrecy with his wife until their last days together. After Edith’s death he moved back to Oxford where he spent his last two years. Today he and his wife are buried together in a single grave marked “Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889-1971, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892-1973”. Lúthien and Beren: the purest and inseparable lovers in his novel the Silmarillion.
Other Literary works: The Middle English Vocabulary, Songs for the Philologist, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Farmer Giles of Ham, Sir Orfeo, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book, Smith of Wootton Major, The Road Goes Ever On, Bilbo's Last Song, The Father Christmas Letters, The Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle Earth, Silmarillion, and many others. I highly recomend Silmarillion, myself.
Other Literary works: The Middle English Vocabulary, Songs for the Philologist, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Farmer Giles of Ham, Sir Orfeo, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book, Smith of Wootton Major, The Road Goes Ever On, Bilbo's Last Song, The Father Christmas Letters, The Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle Earth, Silmarillion, and many others. I highly recomend Silmarillion, myself.
Sources: http://www.tolkiensociety.org http://www.oxfordinklings.blogspot.com
