John Ronald Reuel Tolkein was born on the third of January, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. At the age of three, his mother brought him and his younger brother to England following the death of Tolkein's father. The family remained in England and his mother found them a home just outside the city of Birmingham. Later in life, Tolkein attended Exeter College where he studied many topics including Old English, Germanic languages, Welsh, and more. Tolkein became interested in philology and began to create languages of his own. As Tolkein earned his degree from Oxford in 1915, World War I had started in Europe. Tolkein enlisted and was sent to the western front shortly after marrying his long-time friend Edith Bratt. Tolkein fought in the trenches and most of his closest friends died in combat. Tolkein was sent back to England after he obtained an infection where he spent the remainder of the war. When the war ended, Tolkein became a professor in English Language at the University of Leeds but later went to Oxford University and taught Anglo-Saxon. Tolkein spent the rest of his career at Oxford. It would be here that Tolkein scribbled down his idea of a "hobbit" and expanded on it until a story surrounded his idea. A publishing firm (George Allen and Unwin) became interested in Tolkein's story "The Hobbit" and published it. Almost instantly it became popular and is known as a classic today. The publisher of "the Hobbit", Stanley Unwin, was impressed by Tolkein's book's success that he wanted a sequel, thus "the Fellowship of the Ring" was written followed by it's equally popular sequels "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King". Peter Jackson later helped make the epics into films which where extremely popular, thus continuing Tolkein's legacy.
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