John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on the 3rd of January 1892. 

Son of Arthur Tolkien, a bank clerk who moved to South Africa in the 1890s in the prospect of achieving a promotion, and Mabel Suffield. He also had a brother, Hilary, born on the 17th of February 1894. 

During his childhood in Africa, Tolkien was bitten by a spider. Many scholar believed that this event had an influence in the creation of the spiders of Middle Earth (Shelob and Ungoliant), but the author denied, sayng that he actually had no memory of this event.

At the age of three, he moved to England with his mother and brother. Later, they should have joined by his father. However, Arthur Tolkien died in South Africa due to rheumatic fever in 1896.