Original photograph of students at Exeter College 1914, including J.R.R. Tolkien

Exeter College, Oxford, 1914. An original group photograph in its contemporary frame.

Rare original photograph of J.R.R. Tolkien in original frame from 1914.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on the 3rd of January 1892 in Bloemfontein in South Africa. In 1895 his mother brought him and his brother to England for a holiday, during which his father died. He was brought up in Birmingham by his mother, who became a Roman Catholic. He started school at King Edward's in 1900. In 1904 his mother died. In one of the houses he and his brother lodged in after that, he met Edith Bratt who was also an orphan, whom he married later, in 1916. He finished school in 1911 and was accepted by Exeter College, Oxford. He studied Anglo-Saxon and other languages, and began work on Elvish and the histories that later became The Silmarillion.

In 1914 the First World War started. This picture was taken of all the students at Exeter college. Tolkien is standing in the back against the window and can easily be recognized.

Detail of this picture was used as bookcover for John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War.

The mount shows age toning and scattered spotting, and the wooden frame has surface wear. Reflections from the glazing are visible in the photographs. The gallery includes the complete framed photograph and two closer views of the group. Dimensions and the condition of the reverse have not been recorded; no signature or inscription by Tolkien is claimed.

A striking original photographic record of Tolkien’s undergraduate life at Exeter College on the eve of the First World War.

Digital photo's available, inquire if interested.

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