The love story of J. R. R. Tolkien and his wife: the Church forbade them to marry, but they stayed together until the end!

Фото: Wikimedia Commons

The English writer John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, known in the world literary public for his epic works "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings", loved only one woman all his life and died soon after her death. This tragic situation affected him so much that two years later he himself joined her in eternity, writes "Style".

His wife Edith Mary Brett she was his soulmate and he dedicated his whole life to her love songs, and in his letters to his friends - passionate description of his love for his beloved. They were married for 55 years, and during that period they had four children – three sons and one daughter.

John met his future wife at the age of 16 and she was 19. Although she was three years older, she immediately won him over. Both were orphans, without a mother and a father.

The writer and his brother Hillary lost their father in early childhood, who contracted rheumatic fever and died. After a few years, their mother also died. The unfortunate widow, who was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 34, suddenly collapsed, fell into a diabetic coma and died. Namely, the medicine of that time had not yet discovered insulin and that disease was fatal.

Edith was on trial

After the death of their parents, John and Hilary were looked after by their aunt in Birmingham. When Father Francis, the priest who was close to their family and whom their mother designated as their guardian, realized that the boys were not satisfied with their aunt's life, he decided to move them in with a local wine merchant and his wife. Then the fateful meeting between John and Edith took place.

Namely, the young and beautiful Edith Brat lived in the same house, but only one floor below. The girl with dark hair and gray eyes was also an orphan. She played the piano beautifully and supported herself on the piece of land she inherited from her late mother. Edith brightened up the evenings for everyone in the house by playing the piano.

John and Edith quickly became close and were often very naughty. Together they stole food from the kitchen and organized secret feasts in her room. They occasionally went to drink tea together in local tea houses and put sugar in the hats of passers-by. They rode their bikes separately to tea in town and talked for hours. They hid their friendship, which soon grew into love.

"Your mother and I have escaped the troubles we experienced in childhood," Tolkien, one of the world's leading English linguists many years later, told his children.

Secret meetings and forbidden love

Father Francis found out about the relationship, so the owner of the place where the young people drank tea informed him about it. He was stunned. He immediately asked to break off the relationship, and since John was not a rebel by nature and respected Father Francis, he agreed. Soon he and his brother left the house where they all lived together.

At the time, John was studying for a scholarship at Oxford University and continued to secretly see Edith. They went to the countryside by train and enjoyed each other's company. For her 21st birthday, John bought Edith a wristwatch, and she bought him a pen for his eighteenth birthday.

But they were seen together again and Father Francis forbade him to see or write to her until she turned 21. That's when they started meeting "accidentally". And this became known, and he received a letter from Father Francis in which he called those "accidental" meetings of theirs stupid and thoughtless and threatened him that if he did not stop it, his university career would be impossible.

After that, John saw Edith once more. He wrote in his diary: “At the corner of Francis Road, she passed me on her bicycle on her way to the station. I might not see her for three years…”

She almost married someone else

To forget about Edith, he started studying and could hardly wait for January 3, 1913, his 21st birthday. As soon as the clock struck midnight and announced the beginning of January 3, he sat down at the table and wrote a letter to the girl he hoped would become his wife. When the answer came, he experienced great disappointment. Edith wrote to him that she was engaged to another man, her friend's brother.

John was desperate. He waited for three years and lived for the day when they would see each other again. In his anger he decided to forget her immediately. But he quickly changed his mind.

He got on the train and went to her. He decided to beg her to choose him. And as soon as he saw her on the platform, he knew that she never stopped loving him and that she would come back to him. She told him that she agreed to marry someone else because he was the only young man she knew besides John and because she thought he no longer cared about her and had forgotten her.

She immediately decided to return the engagement ring, broke off the engagement and married her beloved J.R.R. Tolkien.

Happy marriage and four children

John informed Father Francis of the engagement. He reluctantly gave them his blessing, and Edith left her Anglican church and converted to Roman Catholicism at John's insistence. Namely, the famous writer was a very devout Catholic. They didn't manage to get married right away, he had to finish his education, and she was waiting for him. When he finished his education, he went to the First World War, where he fought.

They were married on March 22, 1916. Their first son was born in 1917, and then they had two more sons and a daughter that Edith wanted very much.

One of the greatest and most influential authors of literary fiction of the 20th century is buried with his beloved wife in the same grave in Oxford, the city where he taught at the University for many years. Namely, Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon language at Oxford Pembroke College for 20 years, and then a professor of English language and literature at Merton College for another 14 years.

Edith died in 1971 and her John less than two years after her. The names Beren and Lúthien are engraved on their joint grave. Tolkien paid his most famous and lasting tribute to his beloved when he weaved their romance into the mythology of Middle-earth – the story of Beren and Lúthien.

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