B. Childhood, Life in South Africa and England
             C. Early Adult Life, Tolkien the Linguist
             D. Later Adult Life, Tolkien the Professor
             A. Early Education, A Love of Languages
             B. Later Education, The Road to Oxford
             A. The Hobbit: Or, There and Back Again, 1937
             John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa and was the older of Arthur Reuel and Mabel Suffield Tolkien's two sons. His father's side of the family migrated from Saxony in the 18th century but over the century and a half before his birth they had become thoroughly Anglicized. As for Ronald's mother's side of the family, they had lived in the West Midlands as far as anyone could remember (Doughan). In 1890, when his father was thirty-three, he moved to South Africa from his hometown of Birmingham, a large city located in the West Midlands of England, due to better prospects as a bank clerk. Mable rushed to be with her husband as soon as she was old enough because she was just eighteen when she married Arthur (Coren 8). Arthur liked living in South Africa, but Mable could not stand the climate. Ronald's memories of South Africa were scarce but what he did remember was distinct, such as a confrontation with a spider, which influenced his writings to some extent later in his life (Doughan). When he was four years old his father died and his mother returned to Sarehole, a village near Birmingham, England (Moritz 416).
             In England, Ronald's mother took up the job of educating him; already a gifted linguist, Mable began tutoring her precocious firstborn son in German, French, and Latin. Later he was enrolled at King Edward's after earning a scholarship (Taylor). In 1900 his mother, Mabel, converted to the Roman Catholic Church along with her sons, all of them remained devout Catholics throughout their lives (Carpenter). In England, the Tolkien family lived on the edge of poverty but in 1...