stereobone:

stoneofthehapless:

The man himself, J.R.R. Tolkien

Fun Facts: Tolkien met his wife, Edith Mary Bratt, after moving into the boarding house where she was also staying. He was just sixteen years old, and she was three years his senior. They fell in love over the summer, but Tolkien’s guardian, Father Francis Morgan, disapproved greatly, since Edith was Protestant and Tolkien was a Catholic. He forbid Tolkien to talk, meet, or even correspond with her until he was twenty-one years of age (he even threatened to cut Tolkien’s university career short). So, on the evening of his twenty-first birthday, Tolkien wrote a letter to Edith declaring his love and asking for her hand in marriage. Edith wrote back saying she was engaged to another man, but only because she thought Tolkien had forgotten her. They met under a railway bridge and were reunited. Shortly after, she cut off her engagement and announced she was going to marry Tolkien instead. She even converted to Catholicism. Edith and Tolkien were formally  engaged in 1913, and married in 1916, after Tolkien returned from fighting in World War I. They remained together until Edith’s death in 1971. Tolkien passed away in 1973.