Humphrey Carpenter was given unrestricted access to all Tolkien's papers, and interviewed his friends and family. One day while grading essay papers he found himself writing 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit' - and worldwide renown awaited him. Then suddenly his life changed dramatically. Lewis and the other writers known as The Inklings. After the war he returned to the academic life, achieving high repute as a scholar and university teacher, eventually becoming Merton Professor of English at Oxford where he was a close friend of C.S. He served in the first World War, surviving the Battle of the Somme, where he lost many of the closest friends he'd ever had. Born in South Africa in January 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was orphaned in childhood and brought up in near-poverty. In the decades since his death in September 1973, millions have read THE HOBBIT, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and THE SILMARILLION and become fascinated about the very private man behind the books. In the world of literature, Tolkien’s tales have been a citadel standing against rationalist domination.The authorized biography of the creator of Middle-earth. But his moral and philosophical outlook did inform his work, which in turn has shaped the imaginative vision of many readers. Tolkien did not lay this out with heavy-handed allegory or didacticism he wanted to tell stories, not put crude speeches into the mouths of his characters. Temptation to this may begin from a desire to do good, but this is perverted by the arrogant assumption of control. It is an attempt by the intellect to grasp the whole of reality, and thereby bring it under control. And rationalism (as distinct from reason) is a means and excuse for this unjust dominion. Tolkien’s work is not a warning against power as such, but against domination. Rather it is in the hearts of those who are tempted to join with that evil, or to adopt its methods and mindset of domination. Thus, the chief moral struggle in his work is not the physical war against the unabashed evil of the Dark Lord and his monsters. The great evils in his stories are defined by their desire to dominate and control, subjugating the weak to their ends. This goes deeper than Tolkien’s fondness for forests and distaste for mechanization. Tolkien’s work provided a compelling, if subtle, counternarrative to the claims of scientism and rationalism that dominated much of the twentieth century. The Lord of the Rings has become a cultural icon with broad appeal, whose fans range from hippies to conservative Catholics, but this does not arise from the books being mere escapism. They have sold hundreds of millions of copies and defined the fantasy genre for decades, with a literary quality far superior to their many imitators. Tolkien’s epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, along with the lighter Hobbit prequel, are among the most beloved books of the last century.

Carpenter tolkien biography