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

27 February 1930 Joseph Wright dies. Tolkien is named executor of his estate.

28 February 1930 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting.

3 March 1930 A memorial service for Joseph Wright is held in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin.

8 March 1930 Hilary Full Term ends.

11 March 1930 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

14 March 1930 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. The Board records its sense of loss on the death of Joseph Wright. Tolkien is appointed to the committee on the annual scheme of lectures. He presents proposals for alteration of the regulations governing examinations in the English Honour School, with regard to papers on the medieval period. Some of his proposals are adopted, and he is appointed to a committee to consider the remaining proposals. Tolkien and David Nichol Smith are asked to draft, for submission to the General Board, a statement of the Faculty Board’s reasons for appointing *C.L. Wrenn as University Lecturer in English Philology and *Dorothy Everett as University Lecturer in Middle English. – Tolkien also attends a General Board meeting. The Board accepts a benefaction from Charles James O’Donnell to promote the study of the British or Celtic element in the English language (see *English and Welsh).

April 1930 Tolkien records two short segments, ‘At the Tobacconist’s’ and ‘Wireless’, for a Linguaphone English course. See note.

25 April 1930 Tolkien is listed in the Oxford University Gazette as a Moderator in Literis Graecis et Latinis (Pass School) from the first day of Michaelmas Term 1930 to the first day of Michaelmas Term 1931.

27 April 1930 Trinity Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: Finn and Hengest: The Problem of the Episode in Beowulf and the Fragment (i.e. the ‘Finnesburg Fragment’; see *Finn and Hengest) on Tuesdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 29 April; the Germanic Numerals on Tuesdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 29 April; and Deor’s Lament, Waldere, and Runic Poem on Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 1 May.

30 April 1930 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

9 May 1930 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting.

16 May 1930 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. The committee (including Tolkien) appointed at the last meeting submits proposed revised regulations for the Final Honour School, regarding examination papers to be taken. The Applications Committee has appointed Tolkien and C.L. Wrenn examiners for the B.Litt. thesis of Evan Clifford Llewellyn of Jesus College, The Influence of Middle Dutch and Middle Low German on English Speech.

23 May 1930 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting. The Board appoints C.L. Wrenn as University Lecturer in English Philology for one year from 1 October 1930, and Dorothy Everett as University Lecturer in Middle English for five years. Wrenn is to deliver intercollegiate lectures and carry on advanced study or research, which will relieve Tolkien of some of his academic burden. He and his wife Agnes will become friends of Tolkien and Edith.

29 May 1930 An article by Tolkien, The Oxford English School, is published in the Oxford Magazine for 29 May.

c. 8 June 1930 (Whitsunday) Tolkien’s eldest son, John, is confirmed and takes the additional name Joseph.

11 June 1930 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

12 June 1930 English Final Honour School Examinations begin.

17 June 1930 Tolkien chairs an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library. It is decided in future to have only one meeting per term on the Thursday of the fourth week of term.

20 June 1930 At an English Faculty Board meeting, in Tolkien’s absence, C.T. Onions replaces him on the Committee for the Nomination of Public examiners in the Honour School of English Language and Literature. The Applications Committee has appointed Tolkien and Onions examiners of the B.Litt. thesis of L.E. Jones of Lady Margaret Hall, An Edition of British Museum MS Harley 2372.

25 June 1930 Encaenia.

21 June 1930 Trinity Full Term ends.

16 July 1930 Tolkien and C.L. Wrenn examine E.C. Llewellyn of Jesus College viva voce on his B.Litt. thesis, The Influence of Middle Dutch and Middle Low German on English Speech, at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools.

18 July 1930 Tolkien and Wrenn sign their report (written out by Tolkien) on the examination of E.C. Llewellyn.

29 July 1930 Tolkien attends an extraordinary meeting of the English Faculty Library Committee in the Board Room of the Clarendon Building to elect an Assistant Librarian. He also chairs a special meeting of the English Faculty Board at 12.15 p.m.

2–9 August 1930 The Universal Congress of Esperanto is held in Oxford; Tolkien will later refer to it in A Secret Vice. In connection with this, a sermon is preached in Esperanto to the Catholic delegates in the Dominican church at Blackfriars by Father Gaffney, O.P. See note.

Summer 1930 In later years Tolkien will distinctly recall having written the first words of The Hobbit (‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’) while in the midst of marking School Certificate examination papers in his study at 20 Northmoor Road, thus not before summer 1930. But cases can also be made for an earlier origin; see article on *The Hobbit in Reader’s Guide. – During summer 1930 Tolkien and his sons dig up the tennis court at 20 Northmoor Road to make a vegetable garden.

September–October 1930 Tolkien continues to write the Lay of Leithian. He writes a fifth plot outline, which takes up the story around line 3117. He notes the following dates on the manuscript: lines 3076–84 (Canto X), September 1930; line 3220 (Canto X), 25 September; line 3267 (Canto XI), 26 September; line 3478 (Canto XI), 27 September; line 3650 (Canto XII), 28 September; line 3790 (Canto XII), 30 September; line 3840 (Canto XIII), 1 October. Possibly at this time he continues as far as line 3860, where a typescript copy ends (before continuing in manuscript to the end of Canto XIII).

September 1930 Kenneth Sisam writes to Tolkien, asking if he would be interested in cooperating in an edition of the Ancrene Riwle.

23 September 1930 Tolkien completes a fair copy manuscript of his poem The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, following a good but incomplete manuscript of some earlier date.

29 September 1930 John Suffield, Tolkien’s maternal grandfather, dies.

12 October 1930 Michaelmas Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: Elene on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 14 October; and Old English Minor Poems (including The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Dream of the Rood, and The Battle of Maldon) on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 14 October.

24 October 1930 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting. He is elected to the Standing Committee on Responsions, Holy Scripture, and Pass Moderations.

25 October 1930 Tolkien and C.T. Onions examine L.E. Jones of Lady Margaret Hall viva voce on her B.Litt. thesis, An Edition of British Museum MS Harley 2372, at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools.

31 October 1930 Onions and Tolkien sign their report of the examination of L.E. Jones. They recommend that she resubmit her work after revision. – Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. He is elected to the Applications Committee with C.T. Onions. He is appointed to a committee ‘to consider the number and emoluments of the Readers’ (Oxford University Archives FA 4/5/1/1). Probably at this meeting the printed proposed revised regulations for the Final Honour School are presented; these include a note that they are to be circulated to the faculty, and that comments should be sent to Tolkien no later than 22 November 1930. The Applications Committee has appointed Tolkien the supervisor of E.V. Williams of Jesus College, a probationer B.Litt. student who wishes to work on a Middle English subject.

5 November 1930 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

14 November 1930 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting.

21 November 1930 Tolkien replies at last to Kenneth Sisam’s letter of September 1930. He would like to cooperate in an edition of the Ancrene Riwle, and already has rotographs of one of its most important manuscripts (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 402). He believes that he could produce a plain text, with a limited glossary, in a short time, once he completed work on the Clarendon Chaucer; but a full text, with a complete glossary and grammar, would better serve the study of Middle English. He points out that the Oxford English syllabus is going to be altered to include a special study of the (West Midlands) language of that manuscript, and of a related manuscript in the Bodleian Library. He does not feel that he is solely responsible for the delay in completing the Clarendon Chaucer; he complains that all of the work done so far on the book has been done by him. George S. Gordon has not returned draft notes Tolkien sent him two years earlier, and Tolkien will do no more unless he is given some help in the difficult task of selecting notes and reducing them to the limits Sisam requires.

25 November 1930 Kenneth Sisam replies to Tolkien, approving his decision to try to finish the Clarendon Chaucer.

28 November 1930 Tolkien, as ‘Father Christmas’, writes to his children in reply to their letters. The North Polar Bear has had whooping cough.

5 December 1930 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting. – He also attends an English Faculty Board meeting. The report (dated 28 November) of the committee (including Tolkien) appointed to consider the question of Readers’ and Lecturers’ emoluments is presented.

6 December 1930 Michaelmas Full Term ends.

Christmas 1930 Tolkien, as ‘Father Christmas’, writes to his children. His letter, dated 23–24 December, tells how the North Polar Bear came to have whooping cough after being lost in a snowstorm. An enclosed picture shows Father Christmas finding Polar Bear in the snow, and Polar Bear sitting with his feet in mustard and hot water; the party to celebrate Polar Bear’s recovery; and Snow Boys and Polar Cubs pulling a giant Christmas cracker. – If Tolkien conceived The Hobbit in summer 1930, he possibly now begins to tell the story to his children.

28 December 1930 George S. Gordon writes to Tolkien, returning his notes for the Clarendon Chaucer, praising them and commenting on various points.

1931 (#ulink_d0bb97a9-cea4-53a5-87d0-1c95b4c2587b)

Early 1930s from ?1931 Tolkien writes various undated texts closely associated with but later than the Quenta Noldorinwa and the first version of the ‘earliest’ Annals of Beleriand. These are the ‘earliest’ Annals of Valinor, a chronological record of events during 3000 Valian Years (30,000 of our years) from the time the Valar entered the World until the return of the Elves to Middle-earth and the rising of the Sun and the Moon; two texts of the same work in Old English; and a second version of the ‘earliest’ Annals of Beleriand, virtually a new work but unfinished.

?1931–Trinity Term 1933 The members of Edward Tangye Lean’s ‘Inklings’ society, including Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, meet to read aloud unpublished compositions and receive criticism. Among those works is an early version of *Errantry. Tolkien will later write that the group ‘met in T.-L.’s rooms in University College…. If the club thought fit a [composition] might be voted to be worthy of entry in a Record Book. (I was the scribe and keeper of the book)’ (letter to William Luther White, 11 September 1967, Letters, pp. 387–8). See note. – Using the verso of an early manuscript of Errantry, Tolkien works on a version of his verse drama *The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son.

?1931 Tolkien writes several manuscripts in an invented Elvish script (*Writing systems). Among these are versions of his poems Errantry and *The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (Pictures no. 48), both apparently composed around this time.

18 January 1931 Hilary Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures and classes for this term are: Old English Minor Poems (continued): Judith, Riddles, and The Battle of Brunanburh on Tuesdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 20 January; the Old English Exodus on Tuesdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 20 January; Gothic Traditions, Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 22 January; Carmina Scaldica: Introduction to Reading of Scaldic Poetry, at an hour and place to be arranged; and Old English Textual Criticism, at an hour and place to be arranged.

22 January 1931 Tolkien writes to Kenneth Sisam. He has done as much work as possible on the Clarendon Chaucer despite a ‘shattered vac[ation]’ (Oxford University Press archives), and Pass Moderations and external examining at four universities will now leave him no leisure before August. He asks for guidance on the permitted length of the book and the audience at which it is aimed, to avoid wasted labour. He has been unable to do any research, though ‘obscurities and unsatisfactory explanations’ remain. Further work on the Chaucer will have to be extracted from time normally given to sleep or study, but Tolkien vows to complete the book before the summer if physically possible. Then he will think about an edition of the Ancrene Riwle on the lines that Sisam has indicated.

30 January 1931 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting.