I swore I once read an interview with Ray Bradbury where he mentions he was roommates with Tolkien at Oxford. My friends think Tolkien was a little older, but it might be possible.
This article appeared in the Washington Post between Dec 1999 and Dec 2001. Can anyone confirm? Could it be that Bradbury was a Freshman, and Tolkien a Senior? …or, do I have the wrong roommate for Bradbury altogether?
Please confirm,
“A little older” ? Bradbury wasn’t born until 1920, after Tolkien had already served in WWI.
I suppose they might have met, but roommate seems unlikely.
I can’t imagine that’s true. By the time Bradbury was born (1920) Tolkein was already an established adult who’d been through secondary school and fought in WWI.
Hmm. And on Bradbury’s site it’s mentioned that his schooling stopped after high school.
That doesn’t mean they didn’t room for a writer’s conference or something. But for sure it wasn’t in college.
Not even remotely possible. Bradbury was born in 1920, while Tolkien was born in 1892. Tolkien was past college age when Bradbury was born. If I recall correctly, Bradbury didn’t go to college. Bradbury grew up in Illinois and California. I don’t believe he even visited Europe till the 1950’s, around the time that Tolkien retired from teaching.
I read The Washington Post pretty carefully each day, and I have lots of science-fiction-reading friends who do so also, and if an article there had made such a strange claim I’m sure I would have heard about it.
Tolkien never attended writer’s conferences. I can’t think of any plausible point where Tolkien and Bradbury might have even met.
Tolkein and CS Lewis were buddies - they used to drink together in The Eagle and Child, my favourite pub in Oxford.