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1932

?1932–1938 Tolkien and E.V. Gordon (but primarily Gordon) work to produce editions of the poems The Wanderer and The Seafarer for the series Methuen’s Old English Library, intended as joint efforts. By 1933, and at least as late as 1937, these will be advertised as forthcoming, The Wanderer to be edited by Tolkien and Gordon and The Seafarer by Gordon and Tolkien, the order of names perhaps indicating the intended senior editor for each. Tolkien’s other commitments, however, leave him time chiefly to advise and consult, and despite Gordon’s industriousness the editions will be unfinished when he dies in 1938.

?1932 or 1933 Tolkien writes a poem, Looney (later revised as *The Sea-Bell).

1932 Tolkien buys his first car, a Morris Cowley which the family nicknames ‘Jo’ after the first letters of its registration. Soon after acquiring it, Tolkien and his family visit his brother Hilary in Evesham. The car has two punctures on the way and an encounter with a stone wall near Chipping Norton. It will give the family more freedom to explore the countryside around Oxford (see *Oxford and environs).

2 January 1932 R.E.M. Wheeler asks Tolkien to return the proof of his note, as the publisher is pressing for it. But Tolkien evidently has already done so, as Wheeler writes another letter on the same day, thanking him for the proof. Probably in response to a statement by Tolkien that he intends to continue his inquiries into the name Nodens, Wheeler says that he would like to see the results when ready.

13 January 1932 Tolkien and C.L. Wrenn examine A.M. Trounce of St Catherine’s Society viva voce on his B.Litt. thesis, An Edition of the Middle English Romance of ‘Athelstan’ with Historical, Literary and Linguistic Introduction, Notes and a Glossary, at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools.

17 January 1932 Hilary Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: Beowulf (continued) on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 19 January; Atlakviða and Baldrs Draumar on Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 21 January; The Language of the Vespasian Psalter Glosses on Tuesdays at 12.00 noon in the Taylor Institution, beginning 19 January; and Problems of Old English Philology on Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Taylor Institution, beginning 22 January.

20 January 1932 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

21 January 1932 Tolkien and Wrenn sign their report (written by Tolkien) on the examination of A.M. Trounce.

28 January 1932 Tolkien chairs an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library. He, C.L. Wrenn, and the Assistant Librarian, J.L.N. O’Loughlin, by now have completely reorganized the philological part of the Library’s collections.

29 January 1932 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting.

5 February 1932 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. The Applications Committee has appointed Tolkien supervisor of *S.R.T.O. (Simonne) d’Ardenne of the Society of Oxford Home-Students, a probationer B.Litt. student who wants to work on a Middle English subject.

15 February 1932 Tolkien attends the inaugural meeting of the Society for the Study of Mediæval Languages and Literature (successor to the Arthurian Society; *Societies and clubs) at 5.30 p.m. in the Taylor Institution. He becomes one of five ordinary members on the first Executive Committee, to serve a two-year term (but apparently serves until 1936). Also on the committee are Eugène Vinaver and *Dorothy Everett. C.T. Onions is appointed editor of the Society journal, Medium Ævum.

26 February 1932 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting.

3 March 1932 Tolkien chairs an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library.

4 March 1932 Tolkien certifies that E.O.G. Turville-Petre has pursued a course of study preparatory to research, and recommends him as a B.Litt. student. His thesis is to be An Edition of Víga-Glúms Saga from the Manuscripts, with Introduction and Notes.

11 March 1932 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. The Applications Committee has appointed Tolkien supervisor of E.O.G. Turville-Petre. – Tolkien attends a General Board meeting. – He also attends a Pembroke College meeting.

12 March 1932 Hilary Full Term ends.

8 April 1932 C.S. Lewis recommends to his brother that one day, Warren must read Tolkien’s translation of the Middle English Owl and the Nightingale. Presumably by this date Tolkien has in hand a complete translation, though he will never make it ready for publication.

24 April 1932 Trinity Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode (Textual Study and Reconstruction) on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 26 April; Deor’s Lament and Waldere on Tuesdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 26 April; and Völundarkviða on Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 28 April.

27 April 1932 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

May 1932 Extracts from a letter by Tolkien to the magazine The British Esperantist are published in the number for May 1932, as A Philologist on Esperanto. By now he has become a member of the Board of Honorary Advisors of the British Esperanto Association’s Education Committee. – The May 1932 number of the journal Medium Ævum notes that an article by Tolkien about the phrase ‘Sigelwara Land’ (Old English Sigelhearwan) is among those ‘in hand or … promised for publication’ (see *Sigelwara Land).

5 May 1932 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library.

6 May 1932 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting.

13 May 1932 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. Proposals for the remuneration of examiners are considered. David Nichol Smith and Tolkien are authorized to draw up the Board’s observations for submission to the General Board. The Applications Committee has appointed Tolkien and C.L. Wrenn examiners of the D.Phil. thesis of D.J. Rogers of Jesus College, The Syntax of Cursor Mundi.

20 May 1932 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting.

24 May 1932 R.W. Chambers sends Tolkien an inscribed copy of the second edition of his Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem, published this month.

27 May 1932 Tolkien writes a letter of recommendation for his B.Litt. student A.F. Colborn.

3 June 1932 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting.

9 June 1932 English Final Honour School Examinations begin. Tolkien is an examiner.

?June 1932–June 1933 Tolkien writes the first version of a poem, *Mythopoeia, rejecting the notion that myth and fairy-story are lies, and declaring that Man creates in imitation of the Creator. He will write at least seven versions. At the end of the final manuscript he will later inscribe: ‘Written mainly in the Examination Schools during Invigilation’, i.e. while acting as an examiner.

17 June 1932 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting, a General Board meeting, and a Pembroke College meeting.

18 June 1932 Trinity Full Term ends.

22 June 1932 Encaenia.

July 1932 Tolkien’s note The Name ‘Nodens’ is published as Appendix A in Report on the Excavation of the Prehistoric, Roman, and Post-Roman Site in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire by R.E.M. Wheeler and T.V. Wheeler.

2 August 1932 Tolkien and C.L. Wrenn examine D.J. Rogers of Jesus College viva voce on his D.Phil. thesis, The Syntax of Cursor Mundi, at 2.30 p.m. in the Examination Schools. Tolkien will later write the examiners’ report.

Late August–?early September 1932 The Tolkien family take a holiday at Lamorna Cove in Cornwall with C.L. Wrenn, his wife Agnes, and their daughter Carola. Tolkien and Wrenn amuse the children by having a swimming race while wearing panama hats and smoking pipes. The cove is isolated, unlike popular tourist resorts such as Filey. The Tolkien and Wrenn families go on long walks, even as far as Land’s End. They are amused by one of the local characters, an old man who, Tolkien will later write, ‘used to go about swapping gossip and weather-wisdom and such like. To amuse my boys I named him Gaffer Gamgee, and the name became part of family lore to fix on old chaps of that kind’ (letter to Christopher Bretherton, 16 July 1964, Letters, p. 348). The name will be given to Sam’s father in The Lord of the Rings.

30 August 1932 Kenneth Sisam replies to a letter from Tolkien, who had asked whether the Old English Exodus might have been influenced by early Gallican Psalters.

9 October 1932 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 11 October; Introduction to Old English Philology on Tuesdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 11 October; Old English Prosody on Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 13 October; and Völuspá on Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 14 October.

12 October 1932 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

18 October 1932 Tolkien certifies that S.R.T.O. d’Ardenne of the Society of Oxford Home-Students has pursued a course of study preparatory to research, and recommends her acceptance as a B.Litt. student with the thesis An Edition of the Liflade ant te Passiun of Seinte Iuliene (MS Bodley 34). At about this time Simonne d’Ardenne begins to stay (for about a year) with the Tolkien family at 20 Northmoor Road. Together Tolkien and d’Ardenne will also begin to prepare an edition of Seinte Katerine, another work in the ‘Katherine Group’ contained in MS Bodley 34.

20 October 1932 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library.

25 October 1932 Tolkien replies to a letter from R.W. Chapman of Oxford University Press, noting that he must complete the Clarendon Chaucer or ‘lose for ever the goodwill of the Clarendon Press’ (i.e. the distinguished imprint of Oxford University Press which is to publish the book). Its glossary has been written and corrected, but needs to be collated with the notes, which are also complete except for the selection from the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales and the ‘Monk’s Tale’ but are nearly all too long. ‘If I could send in the notes after drastic cuts and have the bits back again typed fairly quickly I think I could soon complete the job, in spite of the burdens of the day and the night.’ Once the Chaucer is out of the way Tolkien would like to work on other books, indeed feels that he ought to, not only in deference to what is expected of professors but because during the past few years, through research and teaching, he has learned a good deal worth writing about. He has done much work on the Old English matter of Finn and Hengest, though more would be needed to make it suitable for publication. He suggests his prose translation of Beowulf, but feels that it should be preceded by introductory matter on the diction of Old English verse, its metre, and so forth, and include notes concerning particularly difficult problems in the text. ‘All this stuff is in existence as lectures or papers to societies and if only I could free my mind and conscience of the Chaucerian incubus might soon be sufficiently polished up to hand over’ (Oxford University Press archives). He asks if Oxford University Press have thought about a cheap edition of Beowulf aimed at the non-specialist, who under the new English syllabus has to read the entire poem. He points out the need for editions of Elene and Exodus which will remain set books in the English School; he has existing commentaries to both.

27 October 1932 R.W. Chapman writes to Tolkien, offering help with typing and urging him to get the Chaucer off his mind so that he can move on to other things. He thinks a prose Beowulf a good idea provided that it is not too long. Kenneth Sisam is already working on Elene.

28 October 1932 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. He is re-elected to the Applications Committee. The Applications Committee has approved S.R.T.O. d’Ardenne as a full B.Litt. student; Tolkien is to continue as her supervisor.

2 November 1932 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

30 November 1932 Tolkien, as ‘Father Christmas’, writes to his children in response to early letters. He tells them that the North Polar Bear has disappeared, and that the ‘snowbabies holidays’ begin on 1 December.

December 1932 The first of two parts of Tolkien’s essay Sigelwara Land is published in Medium Ævum for December 1932.

2 December 1932 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. The report of the English Faculty Library Committee is presented. The Applications Committee has appointed Tolkien and Dorothy Everett examiners of the B.Litt. thesis of Mary Elizabeth Carroll of St Hilda’s College, The Phonology of Hampshire Place-Name Forms, Particularly as Found in Documents of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Compared with That of the Usages of Winchester, and of Other Texts for Which a Hampshire Origin Has Been Suggested. – Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

3 December 1932 Michaelmas Full Term ends.

18 December 1932 Tolkien writes to Kenneth Sisam, informing him that Sigelwara Land will run through three numbers of Medium Ævum (in the event, it will appear in only two). He thanks Sisam, probably for information about Gallican psalters, and says that he must check the exact spelling of a passage in the Paris Psalter for the last instalment of his essay. He is putting the last touches to his paper on the ‘Reeve’s Tale’, which Sisam had seen, for the Transactions of the Philological Society (Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve’s Tale). He will then turn to the Clarendon Chaucer and hopes to be rid of that burden soon. David Nichol Smith is helping him to ‘curtail my overwhelming mass of notes’. He hopes that his Beowulf translation might come next, ‘but life is short, & so is the day. I am obliged to examine Oxford (complete new syllabus), Manchester and Reading, for the meeting of ends, the coming year; and probably P. Mods [Pass Moderations] at the end of it. Also there are lectures & B.Litts and goodness knows what’ (Oxford University Press archives). If he can find any free time from children and work, he would like to visit Sisam either at home or at the Oxford University Press.

Christmas 1932 Tolkien, as ‘Father Christmas’, writes four pages to his children, dated 23 December, significantly expanding the ‘mythology’ of the Father Christmas letters. He tells how the North Polar Bear became lost in caves decorated long ago with paintings of animals and other figures, and in which he found goblins, ‘to us very much what rats are to you, only worse’. Having rescued Polar Bear with the help of the Cave Bear, Father Christmas found his storerooms disturbed by goblins, which he drove away with the help of Red Gnomes. He apologizes for not being able to carry as many toys this year: the goblins have smashed some of them, and he is taking ‘useful stuff’ (food and clothes) to people who are hungry and cold. Enclosed with the letter is an elaborate picture of Father Christmas in his sleigh drawn by eight pair of reindeer above the Oxford skyline; of the North Pole; of Father Christmas, the North Polar Bear, and the Cave Bear looking at cave paintings while goblins lurk around corners; and of the party that Father Christmas will have on St Stephen’s Day. A second picture, mainly copied from reproductions of real prehistoric cave paintings, purports to show some of the art found in the goblin caves. In addition, Tolkien sends, as from the North Polar Bear, a letter written in an alphabet he has made up from marks in the caves.

?End of 1932–beginning of 1933 Tolkien lends The Hobbit in typescript to C.S. Lewis; at this stage (it seems) the story ends with the death of Smaug, near the end of the chapter ‘Fire and Water’ as finally published in 1937. (See further, entry for The Hobbit in Reader’s Guide.) During the next three years the same typescript will be lent to other friends, including *M.E. (Elaine) Griffiths, a B.Litt. student under Tolkien’s supervision, and the *Reverend Mother St Teresa Gale, Mother Superior at Cherwell Edge in St Cross Road in Oxford, a convent of the Order of the Holy Child Jesus to which was attached a hostel for Catholic women in the Society of Oxford Home-Students.