Mythmaker: The Life of J.R.R. Tolkien is a biography of late author J.R.R. Tolkien--of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit fame. Written for young adults, Mythmaker covers Tolkien's life from his birth to his death.
Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in the now-defunct Orange Free State in Africa (which was under the control of the U.K.). Tolkien was born to Mabel and Arthur Tolkien, a middle-class family who traveled to Orange Free State for Arthur's job.
Up until the death of Tolkien's father, he had a relatively normal and happy childhood. But when his father died of rheumatic fever, Tolkien's family was destroyed both emotionally and financially. Mabel was forced to get a job to support her family; she also decided to homeschool her children, something which would forever shape young J.R.R. Tolkien. He was an overall good student. However, when his mother taught about languages, Tolkien's ears perked up. He was fascinated with language and spent as much time as he could reading and learning more about it.
Naturally, Tolkien loved his mother dearly. He was heartbroken when she died in 1904, when he was 12, from Type I Diabetes. Tolkien and his brother were then raised up by a man from the Catholic church, who loved the boys as his own.
At this time, Tolkien’s love of language grew more strongly. He created a constructed language, Animalic, and his whole life was changed forever. In what would be a blueprint for Elvish, the language that Tolkien created for Lord of the Rings, Tolkien worked on Animalic and made it into something better.
Then, Tolkien traveled to Switzerland, which strongly influenced his works (particularly Bilbo Baggins' trip in his novels). Tolkien then earned a degree from Exeter College, fell in love, and began to write his first published novel: The Hobbit (all while remembering his roots, Catholicism, and his love of language).
Although not initially very successful, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings became sensations in the literary world even after Tolkien had retired. He did little additional work in the world of Middle Earth, but Tolkien's legacy and popularity, as Mythmaker explains, has been enduring for nearly a century.
