Several famous English and American writers visited or lived in South Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and wrote about the country in fiction or non-fiction. Anthony Trollope and Mark Twain, for example, wrote travel books. Some of these writers wrote for children as well as adults. John Buchan and Henry Rider Haggard wrote African stories that are considered to be adventure stories for young readers as well as adult novels. Arthur Conan Doyle, who spent time as an unpaid volunteer doctor in a field hospital during the Anglo-Boer War, started his career by writing for boys’ magazines, and his first story to be published in a book, a boys’ anthology called Peril and Prowess, was set in South Africa (Conan Doyle 1899). This chapter looks at the South African connection of J.R.R. Tolkien and Rudyard Kipling, both of whom lived, for a time, in Bloemfontein.

J.R.R. Tolkien

It can be asserted without fear of contradiction that J.R.R. Tolkien is the most famous person ever to have been born in Bloemfontein. He was the author of The Lord of the Rings (1954), The Hobbit (1937), The Silmarillion (1977) and several shorter works. The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Carpenter and Prichard 1984, 531) declares, “All historians of children's literature agree in placing The Hobbit among the very highest achievements of children's authors during the 20th century,” and the three-volume The Lord of the Rings is regarded throughout the world as a masterpiece for both children and adults. It has been translated into many languages and made into a spectacular film series. The fantasy universe that he created, complete with histories, mythology and languages, is the object of intense study by scholars and fans and, since the publication of The Lord of the Rings from 1954 to 1956, has inspired many subsequent fantasies, including Star Wars.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, known as Ronald, was born in Bloemfontein on 3 January 1892 and died in England in 1973. What were his parents doing in Bloemfontein so long ago, in the early years of its existence, and how long did he stay there? He has not been forgotten in the city of his birth, and an intriguing question for lovers of his books is the extent to which his early years there influenced his writing.