March 25 was the date of the downfall of Sauron, Lord of the Rings.

Since 2003, it has also been Tolkien Reading Day.

Writer, poet, linguist and university professor John Ronald Reuel (J.R.R.) Tolkien was born in 1892 in South Africa to an English bank manager and his wife.

Tolkien lost both his parents during his childhood. His father died when he was 4; his mother passed away when he was 12.

Of his mother, he wrote: “(She) was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary (Tolkien’s younger brother) and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith.”

Tolkien could read and write fluently at the age of 4 and spent his life in writing pursuits and academia.

At age 11, he won a scholarship to attend King Edward’s School, and was posted just outside the gates of Buckingham Palace for King George V’s coronation parade in 1910.

Tolkien served as a second lieutenant in World War I, after delaying his enlistment as long as possible through an academic deferment. He contracted trench fever, a disease carried by lice, and spent much of the war in the hospital.

Tolkien’s devotion to the Roman Catholic faith was instrumental in C.S. Lewis’ conversion from atheism to Christianity. Lewis and Tolkien were good friends and fellow members of The Inklings, a literary gathering founded by Tolkien.

When he was 16, he met the love of his life, 19-year-old fellow orphan Edith Mary Bratt. Tolkien’s guardian, however, prohibited him from any contact with her until he was 21.

Tolkien obeyed the injunction, writing several decades later, “I had to choose between obeying and grieving (or deceiving) a guardian who had been a father to me, more than most fathers. … I don’t regret my decision, though … it was extremely hard, especially at first.”

But he never forgot Edith. On his 21st birthday, he proposed to her, not knowing she was already engaged. She broke off her engagement, returned the ring and she and Tolkien married March 22, 1916.

Their 55-year marriage ended with her death in November 1971. Tolkien followed her to the same grave in Oxford, England 21 months later in September 1973.

Their deep mutual affection was evident to all, and they retired to a wealthy resort on the royalties from Tolkien’s wildly successful books, “The Hobbit,” and its sequel, “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

QUIZ

1. For what duty was Tolkien trained in World War II?

2. Which book of the Bible did Tolkien translate for the Jerusalem Bible?

3. In 1920 Tolkien worked on the Oxford English Dictionary researching the history of words beginning with which letter of the alphabet?

4. Who did Tolkien call “that ruddy little ignoramus”?

5. Which medieval poem did Tolkien translate from Old English to modern English?

6. Along with writing fantasy, what was Tolkien’s favorite hobby?

7. How many languages did Tolkien invent?

8. Which of Tolkien’s invented words made it into the Oxford English Dictionary?

ANSWERS

1. Codebreaker. 2. Jonah. 3. W. 4. Adolph Hitler. 5. Beowulf. 6. Inventing languages. 7. More than 20. 8. Hobbit.