For the first time in Russian, a detailed and reliable biography of the cult writer of the 20th century. Tolkien himself did not really approve of biographies. More precisely, he did not like it when biography was turned into a kind of literary study. “I am absolutely sure that studying the biography of an author in order to understand his works is a waste of time.” However, he could not help but realize that since his works were so enormously popular, the likelihood of a biography being written after his death was very high. And it seems that Tolkien himself gradually collected materials for his future biography: he provided old letters and papers with his comments. In addition, he wrote several pages of memoirs about his childhood. So there is hope that he was not categorically against the publication of this book. But his real biography is The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, for the real truth about him is contained in these books. He could laugh at anyone, but most often he laughed at himself. Once at a New Year's party in the thirties, Tolkien covered himself with an Icelandic sheepskin fireplace rug, smeared his face with white paint and pretended to be a polar bear. Another time, he dressed up as an Anglo-Saxon warrior, armed himself with a battle ax and went out to chase his dumbfounded neighbor. In his old age, he liked to slip his false jaw along with a handful of change to absent-minded sellers. “My humor is simple-minded,” he wrote, “and even the most well-meaning critics find it tiresome.”