The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology. Christina Scull

one copy, Sisam asks Tolkien to show it to E.V. Gordon and to let him know of any faults as soon as possible.

      25 March 1925 Term ends at Leeds.

      April 1925 An article by Tolkien, *Some Contributions to Middle-English Lexicography, is published in the Review of English Studies for April 1925.

      23 April 1925 Term begins at Leeds. – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, edited by Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, is published.

      May 1925 Tolkien receives proofs of the glossary to the Clarendon Chaucer probably in mid-May. George S. Gordon seems to have corrected galley proofs of the text: these and probably Tolkien’s corrected glossary are set in page proof and sent to Gordon and Tolkien later in May.

      6 May 1925 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Senate of the University of Leeds.

      19 May 1925 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Board of the Faculty of Arts at Leeds.

      28 May 1925 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Board of the Faculty of Arts at Leeds.

      June 1925 Tolkien’s poem Light as Leaf on Lindentree (composed 1919–20 and later) is published in The Gryphon for June 1925.

      5 June 1925 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Senate of the University of Leeds.

      11 June 1925 English Final Honour School Examinations begin at Oxford; Tolkien is an external examiner. Other examiners are George S. Gordon, Oliver Elton, and Edith Wardale. There are 154 candidates.

      12 June 1925 W.A. Craigie having decided to leave the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, it is announced in the Oxford University Gazette that candidates for the chair must submit their names to the Registrar by 4 July, together with no fewer than eight copies of any statement, references, and testimonials. The notice states that the Professor will be required to lecture on Old English language and literature, and may also lecture on other Old Germanic languages, especially Icelandic. He must give no fewer than forty-two lectures during the academic year, and must reside within the University during six months at least between 1 September and the following 1 July. The stipend is to be £1,000 a year. – If he has not done so already, having heard that Craigie, his former tutor, is leaving Oxford, Tolkien now writes to several of his colleagues for letters testifying to his qualifications for the Rawlinson and Bosworth chair. – Tolkien writes to Mr Ashton, the father of an exceptionably able student at Leeds who has been unable to sit the final examination. Tolkien assures Ashton that if his son is unable to take the examination the following year he could still be granted ‘an “aegrotat’ degree without class’, which together with recommendations from himself and C.E. Gough, Professor of German Language and Literature at Leeds, ‘will be worth nearly as much to him conceivably as a first class without such strong recommendations’ (Swann Galleries, Autographs, New York, 25 September 2008, lot 253).

      Mid-June 1925 By now, Tolkien and George S. Gordon finish correcting page proofs of the Clarendon Chaucer.

      Summer 1925 By now, Tolkien has abandoned The Lay of the Children of Húrin and now begins a new poem, the *Lay of Leithian, in octosyllabic couplets. He will continue to work on this for six years, abandoning it in its turn unfinished in September 1931. Tolkien will write in his diary that he began ‘the poem of Tinúviel’ during the period of the summer examinations of 1925 (quoted in *The Lays of Beleriand (1985), p. 150).

      23 June 1925 Oxford University Press produces revised page proofs of the Clarendon Chaucer. These however do not include the notes, which Tolkien has not yet written, nor George S. Gordon’s introduction and notes on the critical essays.

      End of June 1925 Tolkien submits a formal printed application for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, dated 25 June 1925 but with a covering letter dated 27 June. The application includes letters of support from distinguished colleagues, all but one of which Tolkien by now has solicited: L.R. Farnell, Rector of Exeter College, Oxford (23 June); Joseph Wright, the retiring Professor of Comparative Philology (22 June); the late Henry Bradley (7 June 1920, a letter undoubtedly written in support of Tolkien’s readership at Leeds); M.E. Sadler, former Vice-Chancellor at Leeds, now Master of University College, Oxford (17 June); George S. Gordon, Merton Professor of English Literature, Oxford (28 June); Allen Mawer, Professor of English Language and Philology in the University of Liverpool (25 June); and Lascelles Abercrombie, Professor of English Literature, Leeds (June 1925).

      July 1925 An article by Tolkien, *The Devil’s Coach-horses, is published in the Review of English Studies for July 1925.

      4 July 1925 Term ends at Leeds.

      14 July 1925 Tolkien writes out the examiners’ statement for the English Final Honour School at Oxford. Later in the year, the examiners’ report will note ‘signs … that the candidates were beginning to combine their literary and linguistic knowledge, and that the modern unnatural division between Literature and Philology was beginning to break down’ (Oxford University Archives FA 4/10/2/3).

      21 July 1925 The electors to the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon meet: they are H.M. Chadwick, Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge; R.W. Chambers, Quain Professor of English Language and Literature, University College, London; Hermann G. Fiedler, Taylorian Professor of the German Language and Literature, Oxford; C.T. Onions, Lecturer in English, Oxford; the Rev. Charles Plummer, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, editor of medieval texts; Joseph Wells, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University; and H.C. Wyld, Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, Oxford. Professor Allen Mawer of Liverpool having decided not to apply, and Professor Chambers having declined a direct offer of the chair, the electors consider three applications: two of these are from Tolkien and his former tutor, Kenneth Sisam. Tolkien is elected by four votes to three. – E.S. Craig, the University Registrar, writes to Tolkien with his congratulations, and sends him an undertaking to sign.

      22 July 1925 Tolkien’s election to the Rawlinson and Bosworth chair is announced in The Times. – He returns the signed undertaking to E.S. Craig at once. He assumes that the statutes governing the chair can be mitigated during Michaelmas Term 1925, as he has to give six months’ notice to Leeds. – He informs the Vice-Chancellor at Leeds that he has been elected to the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship, and resigns his Leeds chair ‘only with feelings of great regret at this sudden severance, in spite of this unexpected turn of fortune for myself’ (Letters, p. 13). – Tolkien is in the process of marking School Certificate examination papers, having read two hundred answers on ‘Caesar’s ghost’, when he writes to H.F.B. Brett-Smith at Oxford. Brett-Smith has sent Tolkien congratulations on his election to the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship. Tolkien encloses a poem with his reply.

      24 July 1925 Oxford Registrar E.S. Craig replies that Tolkien should be able to arrange his schedule, in consultation with his colleagues, so that he can teach at both Leeds and Oxford during Michaelmas Term. He sends Tolkien a schedule of lectures for Michaelmas Term, the proposed lecture list, and the corresponding list for Michaelmas Term 1924.

      7 August 1925 In a letter to R.W. Chambers Tolkien mentions that he has only just finished marking School Certificate examination papers, which he must do in order to pay doctor’s bills.

      8 August 1925 Tolkien replies to a letter from H.F.B. Brett-Smith. He promises to send more of his poetry, and remarks on the tedious labour of correcting examination papers.

      23 August 1925 Tolkien works on the Lay of Leithian, marking this date on the manuscript page that begins with line 557.

      Late August 1925 The Tolkiens have professional family photographs taken in Leeds. A comb in the photographer’s waiting room is used to tidy John and Michael’s hair; some weeks later, they will develop ringworm.

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