J. R. R. Tolkien J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, (; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor who is best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings", and "The Silmarillion". He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both
J. R. R. Tolkien plaque was placed in 2002). He also published a philological essay in 1932 on the name "Nodens", following Sir Mortimer Wheeler's unearthing of a Roman Asclepeion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928. In the 1920s, Tolkien undertook a translation of "Beowulf", which he finished in 1926, but did not publish. It was finally edited by his son and published in 2014, more than 40 years after Tolkien's death and almost 90 years since its completion. Ten years after finishing his translation, Tolkien gave a highly acclaimed lecture on the work, "", which had a lasting influence on "Beowulf" research. Lewis