J.R.R. Tolkien, the devout Catholic author whose Christian beliefs helped shape The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, will be honored with a memorial in Poets’ Corner at London’s Westminster Abbey, alongside his close friend and fellow Christian writer C.S. Lewis.
Westminster Abbey announced that the memorial to the author, scholar, linguist and artist is scheduled to be unveiled during a dedication ceremony in spring 2027, coinciding with the 90th anniversary of The Hobbit and the 50th anniversary of The Silmarillion. Tolkien and Lewis met while teaching at Oxford University and became lifelong friends. Both were central figures in the Inklings, an informal literary group whose members gathered to discuss ideas and read their works.
Lewis, the famed Narnia author, was among the few people familiar with The Hobbit before it was published. The Inklings, and Lewis in particular, reportedly encouraged Tolkien as he worked on the writings that became The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, who died in 1973 at age 81, remained a committed Catholic throughout his life, and his faith informed much of his storytelling. The dean of Westminster, the Rev.
David Hoyle, highlighted Tolkien’s Christian worldview in announcing the memorial. “I am delighted both that there will be a memorial to J.R.R. Tolkien in the Abbey and that the memorial will be a thing of beauty," Hoyle said. "The Hobbit was read to me when I was a boy; when I was a little older, I read The Lord of the Rings, and then I read it again.
We will remember here a master storyteller, a scholar, a man with a Christian imagination and a writer who helped some of us understand that a commitment to life and virtue might be costly and courageous."