John Ronald Reuel Tolkien knew grief at an early age: his father passed away from rheumatic fever when J.R.R. was four years old; his mother died eight years later of diabetes complications, leaving John and his younger brother, Hilary, orphaned.
At age 16, John moved (alongside Hilary) to a boarding house located at 37 Duchess Road, Birmingham under watch of a “Mrs. Faulkner”. Just one floor below the brothers lived a young lady, 2 and a half years older than John, named Edith Bratt, a fellow resident who’d been orphaned at age 14. Upon meeting, they instantly grew close.
Humphrey Carpenter writes in J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography:
“Edith and (John) Ronald took to frequenting Birmingham teashops, especially one which had a balcony overlooking the pavement. There they would sit and throw sugarlumps into the hats of passers-by, moving to the next table when the sugar bowl was empty. ...With two people of their personalities and in their position, romance was bound to flourish. Both were orphans in need of affection, and they found that they could give it to each other. During the summer of 1909, they decided that they were in love.”1
Maybe those who so acutely know the pain of loss are also the ones who are vitalized the most by love—in all its immeasurable beauty. So is the story of J.R.R. Tolkien and Edith Bratt. However, not all was smooth sailing.
Tolkien’s guardian, Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, forbade the relationship, citing it as a hindrance to John’s studies. John begrudgingly obeyed Morgan’s demands but struck a deal: he would resume the relationship with Edith once he turned 21 years of age. Edith was moved to Cheltenham where she lived (significantly more comfortably) with wealthy acquaintances of her family. And yet, the situation was far from perfect—she remained apart from John and significantly more lonely; the only consistent visitor she ever received at the Cheltenham home was a classmate, Molly Field, who had an older brother, a farmer named George from Warwickshire who grew fond of Edith through his sister’s companionship.
By 1915, J.R.R. Tolkien had graduated with honors from Oxford College and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers.2 Additionally, he’d penned “The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star," often viewed as the birth point of the Middle-earth legendarium. His world of mythology and fantasy had begun to take root. His love for Edith was unrequited.
On the night before his 21st birthday, Tolkien wrote Edith a letter, reminding her of his unrelenting love for her. To his surprise, she responded, regrettably, that she’d recently been engaged to George Field, but explained it was not necessarily out of love for George—her loneliness and doubt that John would pursue her ever again left her feeling hopeless without an option otherwise. John took a train the following week, met Edith at a train station, and declared his love for her. She returned the ring to George Field.
J.R.R. and Edith were married March 22, 1916.
Three months later, he was sent to the front lines to fight in World War I.
His compassion for Edith is widely known, having declared his admiration for her as the events of their marriage unfolded. He was poor and hadn’t yet embarked on his career as a soldier, likely to die on the battlefield. His realization of Edith’s potential gain of little and loss of much that would plant the seed that later inspired Beren and Lúthien—the beautiful tale in Tolkien’s Middle-earth involving an immortal elf (Lúthien) who falls in love with a mortal man (Beren) in a union forbidden unless proven by accomplishment. Yet, Lúthien, in her love for Beren, gives up her immortality (against the behest of her family) to spend her life with him. Fans of The Lord of the Rings will recognize the similarity, as well, between Aragorn and Arwen: immortality sacrificed for death—all for the sake of love.
In true Tolkien fashion, he drew inspiration from the highs and lows of his life experience to build out the narratives of Middle-earth. His love for Edith served as, arguably, the most important theme of them all.
After fighting for four months (which included a stint at the Battle of the Somme) Tolkien was hospitalized with trench fever. All of his closest friends were dead, his company depleted, yet he continually demanded to be sent back to the front. The possibility of fighting for his beloved England was too pure a thing of which to be stripped, but he was medically discharged, which coincidentally coincided with the end of the war. Now he was back home with Edith.
In 1917, Tolkien and Edith went walking on a footpath through a forest near Roos. There, he observed Edith dancing and singing. Decades later, in 1972, Tolkien penned the following in a letter to his son, Christopher:
“I never called Edith “Lúthien” – but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief part of the Silmarillion. It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire (where I was for a brief time in command of an outpost of the Humber Garrison in 1917, and she was able to live with me for a while). In those days her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing – and dance.”3
This was the moment that solidified his character origins of Beren and Lúthien, now “seeing” his wife as the elf maiden Lúthien, in all of her beauty, the one who’d gambled on the potential loss of so much to spend the rest of her mortal life with John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.
They had four children, Christopher, John, Priscilla and Michael.
As Tolkien’s career as a writer, professor and philologist grew, Edith was always by his side. Writes Humphrey Carpenter:
“Those friends who knew Ronald and Edith Tolkien over the years never doubted that there was deep affection between them. It was visible in the small things, the almost absurd degree in which each worried about the other's health, and the care in which they chose and wrapped each other's birthday presents; and in the large matters, the way in which Ronald willingly abandoned such a large part of his life in retirement to give Edith the last years in Bournemouth that he felt she deserved, and the degree in which she showed pride in his fame as an author. A principal source of happiness to them was their shared love of their family. This bound them together until the end of their lives, and it was perhaps the strongest force in the marriage.”4
Edith became increasingly arthritic as she aged (often attributed to her posture of playing piano), and desired to live in Bournemouth, a comfortable resort town that would ease her pain and increase quality of life, a request John was happy to honor. It was a place where his success as a writer, at least financially, would be honored with upscale living, something in which Edith found much pride. Writes, Simon Tolkien, their grandson:
Bournemouth was certainly not My Grandfather's first choice of place to live, and I'm sure he missed Oxford. However, my grandmother loved the Miramar, and my Grandfather wanted to make her happy in the last years of their lives.5
Her heath continued to decline. Edith Tolkien passed away at age 82 on November 29, 1971. She was buried in Wolvercote Cemetary in Oxford.
"The story is gone crooked, and I am left," wrote J.R.R. Tolkien after Edith died—a semblance similar to the narrative in Beren and Lúthien:
“And then he turned, and did not weep:
too dark his heart, the wound too deep.”6
J.R.R. Tolkien died 21 months later.
They were buried in the same grave at J.R.R.’s insistence; together again forever. He had the names “Beren” and “Lúthien” inscribed on their shared headstone.
J.R.R. and Edith.
Beren and Lúthien.
Carpenter, Humphrey (1977). J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin.
“J.R.R. Tolkien Timeline.” Tolkien Gateway, Tolkien Gateway, 23 Aug. 2024, tolkiengateway.net/wiki/J.R.R._Tolkien_Timeline#:~:text=This%20article%20intends%20to%20list%20the%20main%20events%20of%20the.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien : a Selection. Boston :Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000.
Carpenter (1977).
“My Grandfather - J.R.R. Tolkien”. Simon Tolkien. 2003. simontolkien.com
Tolkien, J.R.R. Beren and Lúthien. Edited by Christopher Tolkien, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017
What a beautiful, pure love story 😭 this is a fantastic essay
Your best essay yet. Love this one, and love Tolkien's own story.