RIP Priscilla Tolkien

News has sadly broken that Priscilla Tolkien, the only daughter and youngest child of J.R.R. Tolkien, has passed away at the age of 92.

Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien was born on 18 June 1929 to John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and his wife Edith. She had three older brothers, John (1917-2003), Michael (1920-84) and Christopher (1924-2020). Her father read The Hobbit to her brothers as it gestated in the early 1930s, and later on to her before it was published in 1937. During the gestation of The Lord of the Rings, Priscilla helped her father by typing up some of the manuscript as it developed (Tolkien wrote his first drafts in longhand). Tolkien initially named the protagonist of the book "Bingo" after a stuffed bear Priscilla owned; he later changed it to Frodo.

Priscilla noted her father's "complete belief in higher education for girls; never in my early life or since did I feel that any difference was made between me and my brothers, so far as our educational needs and opportunities were concerned."

She gained a degree in English from Oxford University and worked as a social worker and probation officer. In August 1955, after Tolkien completed (at great stress) the revisions to The Return of the King, Priscilla took him on holiday to Italy, where he became enamoured of Venice.

After her father died in 1973, Priscilla was named as a board member of the Tolkien Estate. She became more active in the nascent fandom and scholarship surrounding her father's work. She contributed to the Tolkien Society and its periodicals Amon Hen and Mallorn, and served as the Vice-President of the Tolkien Society for many years (her later father is the President in perpetuo). She was a frequent guest at the Oxonmoot literary event.

Around 1977 she agreed to meet with Ralph Bakshi, who was producing an animated film based on The Lord of the Rings, and gave her approval to his concept art. The same year she gave a speech to celebrate the release of The Silmarillion: "From my earliest years I recall my father telling me stories at bedtime, and in the darkened room as I was falling asleep I have a vivid memory of him retelling the story of Rapunzel and of how her prince sang to her at the foot of the tower where she imprisoned, telling her to let down her golden hair. This was brought back to my mind when reading the Tale of Beren and Luthien...In The Silmarillion we have many shorter tales woven into one large tale of Creation and History...It was possible for my father to conceive stories on both the grand and on the samll scale, and to have his imagination nourished by both the simplest fairy-tale and by great stories of the World."

In 1992 she co-published The Tolkien Family Album with her brother John. She also took part in commemorations of the centenary of Tolkien's birth in the same year. Like most of the family, she offered no commentary on the success of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy in 2001-03, but joined with the rest of the Estate in suing Warner Brothers for failure to pay royalties and trying to sell licences they had no right to, particularly related to gambling. After Christopher Tolkien's death in January 2020, she became the oldest and most senior member of the Tolkien Estate.

With Christopher Tolkien living in France for most of his life, Priscilla Tolkien became the more engaged of the family in the various fan groups and appreciators of her father's work. Well-known to be welcoming, charming and gracious, she will be missed.