The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit were both written by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, a writer, poet, and philologist. He was a major scholar in the English language and specialized in Old and Middle English. He was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein in South Africa. He is the eldest child of Arthur Tolkien, an English bank manager, and Mabel, his wife. He only had one sibling, his brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien. Both were taught by their mother at home. Tolkien was able to read and write fluently at the early age of four. His mother would allow him to read as many books as he wanted. At the age of 12, his mother died of acute diabetes at Fern Cottage in Rednal, England. His mother assigned their guardianship to her close friend, Father Francis Xavier Morgan before her death, who helped bring them up as good Catholics. After the death of his mother, Tolkien grew up in Edgbaston, Birmingham in England, and attended King Edward’s School and then, later on, St. Philip’s. When he won a Foundation Scholarship in 1903, he returned to King Edwards. In his early teens, Tolkien and his cousins invented a language called Nevbosh. In 1909, he composed “The Book of Foxrook”, a sixteen-page book of the earliest example of one of his invented alphabets appeared. Tolkien met Edith Mary Bratt when he was sixteen. She was then three years her senior. He met her when he and his brother, Hilary moved to another boarding house, the same as hers, in Duchess Road, Edgbaston. The two were officially in a relationship in 1909. His guardian, Father Morgan did not support him being romantically involved with Edith who was older than him and was also a Protestant. Because of this, Father Morgan prohibited Tolkien from meeting and talking to Edith until he was 21. When Tolkien turned 21, he wrote a letter to Edith and asked her to marry him, however, Edith already accepted the proposal of one of her closest friends’ brother, George Field. Although Edith explained to him via letter that she only accepted the proposal because she felt, “on the shelf” and wasn’t confident that Tolkien still cared for her. In 1913, Tolkien traveled to Cheltenham to meet Edith. The two talked and Edith decided to accept Tolkien’s proposal by the end of the day. She then wrote to Field and returned the engagement ring. Edith converted to being a Catholic when she got engaged to Tolkien. They got formally engaged in January of 1913 and got married in March 1916 at St. Mary Immac