Lord Of The Rings author JRR Tolkien's last surviving child Priscilla leaves £10m fortune in will

Lord Of The Rings author JRR Tolkien’s daughter Priscilla – who fiercely guarded the author’s legacy – leaves £10m fortune in her will after her death aged 92

  • Priscilla Tolkien, the last of JRR’s children, died at the age of 92 earlier this year 
  • She never married and had no children but managed large portion of estate
  • She once sued Hollywood giants Warner Bros in an $80m merchandising battle 

By Richard Eden for the Daily Mail and Laurence Dollimore For Mailonline

Published: | Updated:

JRR Tolkien’s last surviving child left a £10million fortune in her will, it has emerged. 

Priscilla Tolkien, who fiercely guarded her father’s Lord Of The Rings legacy, died earlier this year aged 92.

But newly released probate documents reveal that the academic left an estate worth £10 million to the Tolkien heirs.

She never married nor had children and largely kept a low profile, like most of her reclusive family.

Priscilla Tolkien, who fiercely guarded her father's Lord Of The Rings legacy, died earlier this year aged 92

Priscilla Tolkien, who fiercely guarded her father’s Lord Of The Rings legacy, died earlier this year aged 92

Priscilla took on Hollywood giants Warner Bros in an $80 million case over merchandising rights of The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit, which was settled out of court in 2017. (Pictured: JRR Tolkien)

Priscilla took on Hollywood giants Warner Bros in an $80 million case over merchandising rights of The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit, which was settled out of court in 2017. (Pictured: JRR Tolkien) 

She was, nevertheless, a pugnacious defender of her father’s legacy and took a leading role in managing his secretive but lucrative estate.

She took on Hollywood giants Warner Bros in an $80 million case over merchandising rights of The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit, which was settled out of court in 2017.

It comes after her brother Christopher Tolkien, a renowned Oxford don and the son of The Lord of the Rings creator JRR Tolkien, died at the age of 95 in 2020. 

He was also a guardian of his father’s posthumous works, editing texts including The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth.

Tolkien was John Ronald Reuel’s youngest son and grew up listening to tales of Bilbo Baggins, helping to shape his father’s characters with his criticism.  

After serving with the RAF in South Africa during the war, Tolkien went up to Trinity College, Oxford, following in his father’s footsteps to become a lecturer in Old and Middle English. 

It emerged last November that he had left behind a £2.4million fortune to his wife and three children. 

Who was JRR Tolkien? 

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in South Africa 1892 and moved to England when he was four. 

He grew up in Sarehole, in Birmingham, and went on to became a Professor at Oxford University where he studied Old and Middle English.

While working at the university, Tolkien invented languages of his own. But when World War I broke out, he enlisted as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers and fought in the Battle of the Somme.

He was eventually released from duty due to illness.

When he returned to Oxford after the war he penned a line about a ‘hobbit’ while grading a paper. 

The line went on to become one of his most famous works, The Hobbit novel, and he later wrote The Lord of the Rings series.

The books contained stories from a fantasy land partially inspired by ancient European myths. The world had its own sets of maps, lore and its own unique language.    

He called it Middle-earth and the world was peopled by men, elves, dwarves, trolls, orcs, goblins and hobbits.

The Hobbit was published in 1937, before his famous trilogy. 

Part one of the series, The Fellowship of the Ring was published in 1954, while The Two Towers and The Return of the King followed in 1955.  

Tolkien had four children, three sons and a daughter, who all carried on his legacy after his death on September 2, 1973, at the age of 81. 

 

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