Tolkien

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friend. (Grotta 26)

By this time Tolkien had mastered Latin and Greek, which was the staple fare of an arts education at that time, and knew some of a number of other languages, both modern and ancient, notably Gothic, and later Finnish. He was already busy making up his own languages, purely for fun. He also met a few close friends at King Edward’s, which in his later school years would meet regularly as the “T. C. B. S.” (Tea Club, Barrovian Society). They continued to correspond closely and exchange and criticize each other’s literary work until 1916. (Doughan 2)

“Tolkien was probably not yet sixteen when he fell in love for the first – and only – time in his life. At the Eddystone boarding house he met Edith Mary Bratt. She was three years older than Tolkien, but that disparity had no effect on their friendship. Nor did the difference in religion seem important to them. In time, the friendship grew into a “love match,” as the Tolkien family later described it. Such a relationship at their tender age was bound to be discouraged, so it necessarily developed in secret.” (Grotta 29) Eventually Father Francis took control of the relationship and forbade Tolkien to see or even correspond with Edith until he was 21. Tolkien stoically obeyed this injunction to the letter. (Doughan 2)


In 1911 Tolkien first “went up” to Oxford at the beginning of the Micahelmas term as a Classical Exhibitioner in Residence at Exeter College. (Grotta 32) “Although somewhat shy and reserved, Tolkien was popular with his contemporaries and quickly made a number o...