J.R.R. Tolkien taught and wrote much of his major work in Oxford, the English university city where he spent most of his academic career.
Tolkien studied at Exeter College, Oxford, and later held several academic posts there. He became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in 1925 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature in 1945. Oxford’s libraries, colleges, medieval scholarship, and surrounding countryside all formed important parts of his intellectual and personal life.
Oxford also connects Tolkien with fellow writer C.S. Lewis. The two belonged to the Inklings, an informal literary discussion group that met mainly at the Eagle and Child pub. Tolkien’s Oxford career was not separate from his fiction: his professional study of languages, myths, and medieval texts fed directly into the creation of Middle-earth.
Although Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, he is strongly associated with Oxford because of his teaching, friendships, writing, and long residence there.