Edith Tolkien

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Edith Mary Tolkien née Bratt (January 21, 1889 – November 29, 1971) was the wife of writer J. R. R. Tolkien and the inspiration for his fictional character Lúthien Tinúviel.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Marriage 1.3 Later life and death 2 Notes 3 Tolkien family tree 4 References

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Edith Bratt was born in Gloucestershire, the daughter of Frances Bratt. She was brought up in Handsworth, a suburb of Birmingham, by her mother and also her cousin, Jennie Grove (related to Sir George Grove).

By 1908 Edith, a talented pianist^[1] had become an orphan. She first met Tolkien in that year, when he and his younger brother Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien were moved into the same boarding house. Despite being his senior by three years (she was 19, Tolkien was 16) by the summer of 1909 they had fallen in love. However, before the end of 1909 the relationship became known to Tolkien's guardian, Father Francis Xavier Morgan, who forbade Tolkien to see Edith until he was twenty-one.^[2]

Tolkien obeyed this instruction to the letter while Father Morgan's guardianship lasted. However on the evening of his twenty-first birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith (who had since moved to Cheltenham)^[3] a declaration of his love and asked her to marry him. She replied saying that she was already engaged but had become so because she had believed Tolkien had forgotten her. Within a week, Tolkien had journeyed to Cheltenham^[4] where the two met up and beneath a railway viaduct renewed their love; Edith returned her ring and chose to marry Tolkien instead.^[5]

[edit] Marriage

Following their engagement in Birmingham in January 1913, Edith converted to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence.^[6] They were married in the Roman Catholic church of St Mary Immaculate[1] in Warwick, England, on Wednesday 22 March 1916.^[7] Their week-long honeymoon was spent at Clevedon, in North Somerset, and included a visit to the Cheddar Caves.^[8]

A great number of letters dating to the period 1913–1918 sent by Tolkien to Edith exist in the Tolkien family archives but, due to their personal nature, only a very small number of these were selected for publication in Humphrey Carpenter's book (see below).^[9]

Soon after their marriage, Tolkien commenced a course at the army signals school at Otley, and Edith moved to be as close to his military camp as possible, moving with her cousin Jennie Grove to a cottage in the village of Great Haywood, where she lived from April 1916 to February 1917.^[10] Due to their wedding occurring during Lent, only the Marriage Service and not the Nuptial Mass had been performed; the couple received a nuptial blessing at the Roman Catholic church of St John the Baptist, in Great Haywood.^[11]

Their first child, John Francis Reuel (16th November 1917–22nd January 2003) was born in Cheltenham. After World War I, they had three more: Michael Hilary Reuel (October 1920–1984), Christopher John Reuel (1924–) and Priscilla Anne Reuel (1929–).

[edit] Later life and death

Tolkien's professional career at the universities of Leeds and Oxford resulted in the family moving to these towns. After he retired, he and Edith moved to a location near Bournemouth, where they were living sometime around 1968. Their grandson Simon Tolkien states on his website that the preference for Bournemouth was Edith's, and that she loved spending time at the Miramar Hotel there.[2]

Edith Tolkien died on 29th November, 1971 at the age of 82, and was buried in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford; Tolkien was buried with her when he died two years later.

Below the names on their grave are the names of the characters of Beren and Lúthien: in Tolkien's Middle-earth mythology, Lúthien was the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar, and forsook her immortality for her love of Beren.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Tolkien family tree

[edit] References

• Biography: Carpenter, Humphrey (1977). Tolkien: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-04-928037-6.
• Letters: Carpenter, Humphrey and Tolkien, Christopher (eds.) (1981). The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-04-826005-3.
• Great War: Garth, John (2003). Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-711952-6.