J. R. R. Tolkien
Address Commemoration Date unveiled Issued by
Sarehole Mill , Hall Green , Birmingham Inspired 1896-1900 ( i.e . lived nearby ) 15 August 2002 Birmingham Civic Society and The Tolkien Society
1 Duchess Place , Ladywood , Birmingham Lived near here 1902-1910 Unknown Birmingham Civic Society
4 Highfield Road , Edgbaston , Birmingham Lived here 1910-1911 Unknown Birmingham Civic Society and The Tolkien Society
Plough and Harrow , Hagley Road , Birmingham Stayed here June 1916 June 1997 The Tolkien Society
2 Darnley Road , West Park , Leeds First academic appointment , Leeds 1 October 2012 The Tolkien Society and the Leeds Civic Trust
20 Northmoor Road , North Oxford Lived here 1930-1947 3 December 2002 Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board
Hotel Miramar , East Overcliff Drive , Bournemouth Stayed here regularly from the 1950s until 1972 10 June 1992 by Priscilla Tolkien Borough of Bournemouth
Legacy -- Commemorative plaques
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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL (/ruːl ˈtɒlkiːn/;[a] 3 January 1892 - 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and academic, who authored the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis - they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972. After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and Middle-earth[b] within it. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings. While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the father of modern fantasy literature - or, more precisely, of high fantasy. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of The 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Forbes ranked him the fifth top-earning dead celebrity in 2009.