Editing J. R. R. Tolkien (section)

=== Childhood ===
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[[File:Mabel Suffield Christmas Card.jpg|thumb|left|1892 Christmas card with a coloured photo of the Tolkien family in Bloemfontein, sent to relatives in Birmingham, England]]

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in [[Bloemfontein]] in the [[Orange Free State]] (later [[Treaty of Vereeniging|annexed]] by the [[British Empire]]; now [[Free State Province]] in the Republic of South Africa), to [[Arthur Tolkien|Arthur Reuel Tolkien]] (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife [[Mabel Suffield Tolkien|Mabel]], {{née|Suffield}} (1870–1904). The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, [[Hilary Tolkien|Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien]], who was born on 17 February 1894.<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|p=14}}</ref>

As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a large [[Harpactirinae|baboon spider]] in the garden, an event some believe to have been later echoed in his stories, although he admitted no actual memory of the event as an adult. In an earlier incident from Tolkien's infancy, a young family servant took the baby to his homestead, returning him the next morning.<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|p=13}}. Both the spider incident and the visit to the homestead are covered here.</ref>

When he was three, he went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of [[rheumatic fever]] before he could join them.<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|p=24}}</ref> This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in [[Kings Heath]],<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|loc=Ch I, "Bloemfontein". At 9 Ashfield Road, King's Heath.}}</ref> Birmingham. Soon after, in 1896, they moved to [[Sarehole]] (now in [[Hall Green]]), then a [[Worcestershire]] village, later annexed to Birmingham.<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|p=27}}</ref> He enjoyed exploring [[Sarehole Mill]] and [[Moseley Bog]] and the [[Clent Hills|Clent]], [[Lickey Hills|Lickey]] and [[Malvern Hills]], which would later inspire scenes in his books, along with nearby towns and villages such as [[Bromsgrove]], [[Alcester]], and [[Alvechurch]] and places such as his aunt Jane's farm Bag End, the name of which he used in his fiction.<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|p=113}}</ref>

Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home. Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil.<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|p=29}}</ref> She taught him a great deal of [[botany]] and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of [[Latin]] very early.<ref name="DoughanBio">{{cite web |last=Doughan |first=David |year=2002 |title=JRR Tolkien Biography |url=http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060303050751/http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html |archive-date=3 March 2006 |website=Life of Tolkien}}</ref>

Tolkien could read by the age of four and could write fluently soon afterwards. His mother allowed him to read many books. He disliked ''[[Treasure Island]]'' and "[[The Pied Piper]]" and thought ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' by [[Lewis Carroll]] was "amusing". He liked stories about "Red Indians" (the term then used for Native Americans in [[adventure fiction|adventure stories]]<ref name="Butts 2004">{{cite book |last=Butts |first=Dennis |editor-last=Hunt |editor-first=Peter |title=International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |location=Abingdon, Oxfordshire |volume=1 |isbn=0-203-32566-4 |pages=340–351 |edition=Second |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t1RsBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA340 |chapter=Shaping boyhood: British Empire builders and adventurers |quote=By the 1840s, of course, adults were already reading tales of adventure involving Red Indians}}</ref>) and works of fantasy by [[George MacDonald]].<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|p=22}}</ref> In addition, the "Fairy Books" of [[Andrew Lang]] were particularly important to him and their influence is apparent in some of his later writings.<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|p=30}}</ref>

[[File:BirminghamOratoryDome.jpg|thumb|right|[[Birmingham Oratory]], where Tolkien was a parishioner and altar boy (1902–1911)]]
Mabel Tolkien was received into the [[Roman Catholic Church]] in 1900 despite vehement protests by her [[Baptist]] family,<ref name="Biography31">{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|p=31}}</ref> which stopped all financial assistance to her. In 1904, when J. R. R. Tolkien was 12, his mother died of [[diabetic ketoacidosis|acute diabetes]] at Fern Cottage in [[Rednal]], which she was renting. She was then about 34 years of age, about as old as a person with [[diabetes mellitus type 1]] could survive without treatment—[[insulin]] would not be discovered until 1921, two decades later. Nine years after her death, Tolkien wrote, "My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith."<ref name="Biography31" />

Before her death, Mabel Tolkien had assigned the guardianship of her sons to her close friend, Father [[Francis Xavier Morgan]] of the [[Birmingham Oratory]], who was assigned to bring them up as good Catholics.<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|p=39<!--pp=34-57 passim.-->}}</ref> In a 1965 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled the influence of the man whom he always called "Father Francis": "He was an upper-class Welsh-Spaniard Tory, and seemed to some just a pottering old gossip. He was—and he was {{em|not}}. I first learned charity and forgiveness from him; and in the light of it pierced even the 'liberal' darkness out of which I came, knowing more about '[[Mary I of England|Bloody Mary]]' than the [[Mother of Jesus]]—who was never mentioned except as an object of wicked worship by the Romanists."<ref group="T">{{harvnb|Carpenter|Tolkien|1981|loc=''Letters'' #267 to Michael Tolkien, 9–10 January 1965.}}</ref> After his mother's death, Tolkien grew up in the [[Edgbaston]] area of Birmingham and attended [[King Edward's School, Birmingham]], and later [[St Philip's School]]. In 1903, he won a Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward's.<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|pp=25–38}}</ref>