Yes. The true story behind the Tolkien movie reveals that prior to her death, Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home. Ronald, as he was known to the family, was an apt pupil and was taught languages (including Latin), botany, and was encouraged to read many books, including fantasy stories. Mabel introduced her son to the myths and legends that would inspire his own future writing.

A Tolkien movie fact-check reveals that this scene is likely fictional. His school days were dramatized for the movie. There is also no evidence that having some friends over to play billiards turned into a moment of rebellion against authority.

Tolkien met future-wife Edith Bratt (portrayed by Lily Collins) when he was 16 and moved into the Birmingham boarding house in the suburb of Edgbaston. Bratt was a fellow orphan and resident at the boarding house. According to Humphrey Carpenter's authorized biography, the two had similar personalities and became friends. Given that they were both orphans in need of affection, it was only natural that a romance would blossom.

Yes. In separating the Tolkien movie's facts and fiction, we learned that he was indeed forbidden from having a relationship with Edith, 19, in part due to her older age and affiliation as a Protestant. Like in the film, Father Francis, Tolkien's guardian, also wanted him to focus on his studies, including his plans to attend Oxford. He wasn't allowed to see Edith until he turned 21.

No. This is an entertaining scene in the movie, but we found no evidence that it actually happened in real life.

Yes. After they reconnected, Edith broke off her engagement with another man when Tolkien confessed that he still loved her. He asked her to marry him in January 1913 and she accepted. Edith reluctantly agreed to convert to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence, and the two married on March 22, 1916, just prior to Tolkien going off to war.

No, at least we found no evidence of Tolkien mentioning this. The movie uses CGI to show the audience Tolkien's hallucinations of dragons, smokey monsters, and cloaked figures riding on horseback across the battlefield, which foreshadow some of the inhabitants of his future stories. The real Tolkien didn't mention having such hallucinations after catching trench fever, a highly contagious disease transmitted by body lice.

The illness and his ensuing health problems (fever, headaches, leg pains, rashes, eye inflammation, etc.) resulted in him either being in hospital or in home service camps for the rest of the war, which may have very well saved his life (The Guardian). In fact, the 11th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers with which he had been part of was struck by German mortar fire, leaving many of them wounded. This was followed by a "massive bombardment" of its frontline. Tolkien wasn't the only famous author to have suffered from trench fever. C.S. Lewis and A.A. Milne also contracted trench fever during World War I.

Yes. The true story behind the Tolkien movie confirms that two of the four members of the Tea Club, Barrovian Society were killed in the Great War. This includes artist Robert 'R.Q.' Gilson and poet Geoffrey 'G.B.' Smith. Gilson was killed by a shell burst on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916. He was one of 6,380 British casualties from the 34th Division, on what became the deadliest day of battle in British Military history. Several months later on November 29, 1916 near the village of Souastre on the Doullens in France, G.B. Smith was hit by shrapnel when the 19th Battalion was shelled. He suffered severe wounds to his right arm. As his wounds became more worrying, his condition deteriorated and he died on the morning of December 3.

Just prior to his death, G.B. Smith wrote a letter to J.R.R. Tolkien:

My chief consolation is that if I am scuppered tonight there will still be left a member [of our school group] to voice what I dreamed and what we all agreed upon. For the death of one of its members cannot, I am determined, dissolve [the group]. Death can make us loathsome and helpless as individuals, but it cannot put an end to the immortal four! May God bless you my dear John Ronald and may you say things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them if such be my lot.

Yours ever,

G. B. S.

Yes. Despite numerous obstacles early on in their relationship, our Tolkien movie fact-check confirmed that he married Edith Bratt and they remained together for the rest of her life (Edith died first). They had four children together: John Francis (b. 1917), Michael Hilary (b. 1920), Christopher John (b. 1924), and Priscilla Anne (b. 1929). Their son Christopher was named after T.C.B.S. member Christopher Wiseman.

Edith passed away in 1971 after being married to Tolkien for more than 50 years. According to Tolkien's grandson Simon, he sometimes seemed sad and expressed how much he missed her. J.R.R. Tolkien died in 1973, just 21 months after Edith.

No. The film wasn't officially authorized by the Tolkien estate, but neither were The Lord of the Rings movies and those films won Oscars. In the month prior to the biopic's release, the Tolkien Estate put out a statement explaining that the family "did not approve of, authorize, or participate in the making of this film" and "they do not endorse it or its content in any way." A spokesman for the estate said that they did not plan to take legal action, but they don't want people to confuse the director's dramatization with historical fact. -The Guardian

Peer deeper into the true story by watching a video of J.R.R. Tolkien discussing The Lord of the Rings, in addition to some of his other interests.