General comments on The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide may be read here. Addenda and corrigenda to vol. 2, the Reader’s Guide, may be read here. Addenda and corrigenda common to the Chronology and Reader’s Guide may be read here. See also here for addenda and corrigenda to the Chronology added by date (beginning 17 June 2008). For citations to entries in the chronology proper (pp. 1–803), line numbers are counted from the start of the entry on the page cited, or if the entry breaks between pages, from the top or (when stated) bottom of the page cited.
dust-jacket, back flap: The ‘checklists’ referred to in the note on the Reader’s Guide in fact are contained in the Chronology as appendices.
title-page, verso, 13-digit ISBN: For ‘978-261-10381-8’ read ‘978-0-261-10381-8’.
p. 2, entry for 15 November 1892: The Christmas greetings photograph may also be seen on this site, in colour as hand-tinted by Mabel Tolkien.
p. 4, entry for Summer 1896, l. 12: John Benjamin Tolkien died on 1 August 1896. This note should be moved to a new entry immediately following:
1 August 1896 John Benjamin Tolkien dies.
p. 6, entry for Autumn term 1900, ll. 2–3: For ‘the Eleventh Class under W.H. Kirkby’ read ‘the Eleventh Class under Assistant Master W.H. Kirkby, and in Section D7 (i.e. group D7 for the study of Mathematics and Arithmetic)’.
p. 7, entry for Autumn term 1900, ll. 10–11: Further to our comment that ‘during his first term, ill health will keep Ronald away from school on several occasions’, the December 1900 class list for King Edward’s School, compiled following the autumn term, records him as ‘absent’.
p. 7, entry for Late 1900 or early 1901: Mabel Tolkien and her sons were established at the house in Westfield Road before the end of January 1901. The entry for J.R.R. Tolkien in the King Edward’s School admission register for that month gives his address as ‘St Malo, Westfield Road, Kings Heath’. The School’s Blue Book, i.e. information booklet, dated January 1901 still lists Ronald at 214 Alcester Road, possibly a case of delayed updating. He is listed correctly in Westfield Road in the Blue Book for September 1901; then, however, the Blue Book numbers for January 1902 and January 1903 erroneously return Ronald to Alcester Road, and that for September 1903 gives his contact information as ‘W.H., Rathgar, Wake Green Road, Moseley’. In the Companion and Guide we have accepted as more reliable the evidence of the manuscript admission registers, supplied to us by then-King Edward’s School archivist Kerry York.
p. 7, add new entry:
Spring and summer terms 1901 Ronald continues in Class XI under W.H. Kirkby, and in Section D7. He will be ranked thirteenth among twenty-two boys in the School class list dated July 1901.
p. 7, entry for Autumn term 1901, l. 2: For ‘A.W. Adams’ read ‘Assistant Master A.W. Adams, and to Section D5 for Mathematics and Arithmetic. He will be ranked twenty-first among twenty-three boys in the School class list dated December 1901.’
p. 8, entry for Spring term 1903: To ‘Ronald re-enters King Edward’s School’ add ‘in January 1903’. For ‘R.H. Hume’ read ‘Assistant Master R.H. Hume, and in Section D5.’
p. 8, entry for July 1903: The date is that of the King Edward’s School class list, published following the summer term.
p. 8, entry for Autumn term 1903: For ‘*George Brewerton’, l. 16, read ‘Assistant Master *George Brewerton’. Add at end: ‘During this term he is in Section B6 for Mathematics and Arithmetic. He will be ranked eighteenth among twenty-three boys in the School class list dated December 1903.’
p. 9, add new entry after that for January 1904:
Spring and summer terms 1904 The King Edward’s School class list dated July 1904, concerning the first half of the year, will list Ronald as ‘absent’.
p. 9, entry for April 1904, ll. 3–5: For ‘Ronald to their Aunt Jane, now married to a former lodger in the Suffield home, Edwin Neave, and living in Hove on the south coast of England, near Brighton’ read ‘Ronald to Hove on the south coast of England near Brighton, to stay with Edwin Neave, a former lodger in the Suffield home and the future husband of Mabel’s sister, Jane’.
p. 9, entry for 27 April 1904, ll. 2–3: For ‘it is inscribed They Slept in Beauty Side by Side (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 4) and apparently shows Jane and Edwin Neave in bed’ read ‘inscribed They Slept in Beauty Side by Side (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 4), it shows Ronald and Edwin Neave in bed’.
p. 9, entry for 27 April 1904, ll. 9–10: For ‘At some point Jane must have left her nephew and husband in order to visit Mabel in hospital, for in another drawing’ read ‘In another drawing,’.
p. 10, add new entry after that for September 1904:
Autumn term 1904 Ronald continues in Class VI under George Brewerton, and in Section B6.
p. 10, entry for December 1904: The date is that of the King Edward’s School class list, published following the autumn term.
p. 11, entry for 1905: Transfer the first two sentences to new entry for Spring and summer terms 1905, as below.
p. 11, add new entry:
Spring and summer terms 1905 With the permission of the Oratory, for otherwise they would have to go to St Philip’s, Ronald continues to attend King Edward’s School, now together with Hilary, who enters in January 1905 in Class XIII, Section D7. Ronald is still in the Sixth Class under George Brewerton, and in Section B6. He is also now in the Third Division (b) of the French course taught by Assistant Master A.L. Rothe.
p. 11, add new entry:
August 1905 Jane Suffield and Edwin Neave are married in Manchester. They settle in Gedling, close to Nottingham, where Edwin now holds a more senior position with Guardian Assurance.
p. 11, entry for 2 August 1905, l. 2: For ‘tied for first place in the Sixth Class’ read ‘tied for first place among fifteen boys in the Sixth Class’.
p. 11, entry for Autumn term 1905: For ‘C.H. Heath’, l. 2, read ‘Assistant Master C.H. Heath’. For ‘in the class’, l. 4, read ‘in the class of nineteen boys’. Add at end: ‘During this term Ronald is in Section B5 for Mathematics and Arithmetic under Assistant Master Charles Davison, and in the French Third Division (a) under Assistant Master J.W. Smyth. Hilary Tolkien continues in Class XIII, Section D7.’
p. 12, entry for Spring or summer term 1906: For ‘Spring or summer term’ read ‘Spring and summer terms’. Add after the second sentence: ‘During this term Ronald is in Section B4 for Mathematics and Arithmetic, in which he will be ranked second, and in the French Third Division (a) under Assistant Master J.H. Manton, in which he will be ranked third. Hilary Tolkien is now in Class XI, Section D5.’ For ‘in the class’, l. 4, read ‘in a class of nineteen boys’.
p. 12, entry for Autumn term 1906: For ‘A.E. Measures’, l. 2, read ‘Assistant Master A.E. Measures, and in Section A6 for Mathematics and Arithmetic under W. Sneath’. Add at end: ‘Hilary Tolkien is now in Class X, Section D5.’
p. 12, entry for Spring term 1907: Add to sentence: ‘and in Section A5 for Mathematics and Arithmetic under Assistant Master P.M. Marples. Hilary Tolkien is now in Class IX, Section D4.’
p. 12, entry for 31 July 1907, l. 2: For ‘class’ read ‘general class, and eighth in Section A5)’.
pp. 12–13, entry for Autumn term 1907: For ‘Measures’, l. 2 of the entry on p. 12, read ‘Measures; he will remain in this uppermost class, under the same instructors, for the rest of his years at King Edward’s School.’ Add at the end of the first section of the entry: ‘During this term Ronald is in Section A5 for Mathematics and Arithmetic, again under P.M. Marples, in which he will end the term ranked third. Hilary Tolkien is now in the Upper Remove, Section D3.’
p. 13, add new entry:
Spring and summer terms 1908 Ronald continues in Class I, Section A5 in King Edward’s School; there are twenty-one pupils in the First Class. He will end the term ranked sixteenth in his Mathematics section. Hilary Tolkien is now in Transitus, Section C5.
p. 13, entry for Autumn term 1908: Add at the end of the first section of the entry: ‘Hilary Tolkien is now in Class VI, Section B6. Ronald is now a King Edward’s Scholar, a distinction which will continue until he leaves the School in 1911. He will end the term ranked thirteenth in Mathematics Section A4, under Assistant Master the Rev. F.O. Lane. During this term he also takes a voluntary class in Practical Chemistry, taught by Assistant Master T.J. Baker.’
p. 14, entry for 1909, l. 1: Delete ‘Edwin Neave dies’.
p. 14, add new entry after that for 1909:
Spring and summer terms 1909 Ronald continues in the First Class, one of eighteen pupils. He will end the this period ranked thirteenth in his Mathematics section, A4, again under F.O. Lane, and second in his German class, which is taught by A.L. Rothe. Hilary Tolkien continues in Class VI, Section B6.
p. 14, add new entries after that for 26 March 1909:
Spring 1909: A tolkien page on the Birmingham Oratory web site quotes the ‘Parish Magazine’, i.e. the magazine of the Birmingham Oratory parish, for May 1909: ‘Three patrols of Scouts under the Brothers Tolkien, have been started, and they marched smartly in the wake of the Boys Brigade on Easter Monday [11 April]. When they have done a little more drill, we shall ask some of our friends to help towards providing them with shirts, haversacks, etc.’
11 May 1909 Edwin Neave dies of bronchial pneumonia. He is buried in All Hallows’ churchyard, Gedling.
p. 15, entry for Summer term 1909, l. 1: For ‘Tolkien’ read ‘Ronald’.
p. 16, entry for Autumn term 1909: To the list of friends in ll. 1–2, add ‘W.H. Payton’. Add at end: ‘Ronald is no longer in a Mathematics section, apparently having completed his required course of study. Hilary Tolkien is now in Class VI, Section B5.’
p. 17, entry for Spring term 1910: Add at end: ‘During the spring and summer terms, there are seventeen pupils in Class I. Hilary Tolkien is now in Class V, Section B4.’
p. 20, entry for Summer 1910, ll. 1–3: Two of Tolkien’s drawings of Whitby, Whitby and Ruins at West End of Whitby Abbey, are reproduced in Artist and Illustrator, figs. 9–10. Another, ‘Sketch of Whitby’, is reproduced in Life and Legend, p. 19.
p. 20, entry for Summer 1910, ll. 3–7: For ‘Either this summer . . . September 1911’, read ‘Either this summer or in 1911 he also visits his Aunt Jane Neave in St Andrews, Scotland, where she is Lady Warden of University Hall. While there he draws a view, St Andrews from Kinkell Brae.’
p. 23, add new entry at start of section:
Spring and summer terms 1911 During this period, Ronald is one of seventeen pupils in the First Class.
p. 23, entry for 17 February 1911: The report on Tolkien’s paper in the King Edward’s School Chronicle is reproduced in full in The Annotated Hobbit, 2nd edn. (2002), p. 3.
p. 31, add new entry:
1912 Tolkien possibly visits St Andrews again this year. He writes a short poem, The Grimness of the Sea (*The Horns of Ylmir), on the earliest extant manuscript of which he will later note: ‘original nucleus of ‘The Sea-song of an Elder Day’ (1912) (St Andrews)’. He will date another manuscript to ‘1912 (sometime)’. [Note: The date (1912) and the place of writing (St Andrews) are open to question, depending upon whether Tolkien visited St Andrews for a reason other than to see his Aunt Jane Neave. If he did not, then he is not likely to have written The Grimness of the Sea in 1912, by which date his aunt was no longer in St Andrews; and in that case, the poem may date instead to a visit in 1910 or 1911. Or it could be that the poem dates from 1912 but was not written in St Andrews.]
p. 34, entry for Summer vacation 1912, ll. 7–11: Delete ‘Tolkien will visit St Andrews again . . . Horns of Ylmir).’
p. 39, entry for 21 March 1913, ll. 2–3: For ‘Phoenix Farm, Gedling, near Nottingham, where his brother Hilary has come to live’ read ‘Phoenix Farm, Gedling (near Nottingham), which with the adjoining Manor Farm is jointly owned and worked by his Aunt Jane Neave and Ellen Brookes-Smith, and where his brother Hilary is now employed’.
p. 47, entry for 19 November 1913, l. 4: Delete the erroneous citation ‘Life and Legend, p. 26’.
p. 49, entry for 12 January 1914, l. 2: For ‘fig. 19’ read ‘fig. 39’.
p. 50, entry for Hilary Term 1914, ll. 17–19: The photograph is also reproduced, slightly cropped, in Life and Legend, p. 25.
p. 54, entry for Late September 1914, ll. 1–3: For ‘Tolkien visits Phoenix Farm, Gedling, which by now his Aunt Jane Neave is running with the Brookes-Smiths and his brother Hilary. By this time too, Hilary’ read ‘Tolkien visits his Aunt Jane Neave and his brother Hilary at Phoenix Farm, Gedling. By this time, Hilary’.
p. 58, entry for Late 1914: Add: ‘– Emily Jane Suffield, Tolkien's maternal grandmother, dies.’
p. 59, add new entry:
?Early 1915 Mary Jane Tolkien (Tolkien’s paternal grandmother) dies.
Maggie Burns reports that there is an entry in the official deaths index for a Mary Tolkien who died in Newcastle early in 1915, aged 81, and that in 1901 Mary Tolkien was recorded as staying in the Newcastle area with her daughter Grace Mountain.
p. 61, entry for Easter Vacation 1915: In the heading, for ‘Vacation’ read ‘vacation’.
p. 64, entry for 30 April 1915, l. 4: For ‘Easter Vacation’ read ‘Easter vacation’.
p. 65, entry for 28 May 1915, ll. 4–5: For ‘Freston . . . probably one or two years senior to Tolkien’ read ‘Hugh Reginald Freston, known as Rex, . . . one year junior to Tolkien’. Freston’s Quest of Beauty and Other Poems, first published in 1915, was reprinted with a prefatory biographical note in 1916, and in this form is now online at the internet archive.
p. 65, entry for 28 May 1915, l. 7: For ‘was killed in action at La Boiselle’ read ‘will be killed in action at La Boisselle’.
p. 68, entry for ?20 June 1915, l. 18: For ‘Carpatian Street’ read ‘Corporation Street’.
p. 70, entry for 9 July 1915, l. 10: For ‘Georgian Verse’ read ‘Georgian Poetry’. G.B. Smith wrote the title in error in his letter to Tolkien, and we inadvertently repeated it.
p. 82, entry for 1 July 1916, l. 13: For ‘La Boiselle’ read ‘La Boisselle’.
p. 83, entry for 6 July 1916, l. 3: For ‘La Boiselle’ read ‘La Boisselle’.
p. 83, entry for 8–10 July 1916, l. 8: For ‘La Boiselle’ read ‘La Boisselle’.
p. 84, entry for 14 July 1916, l. 3: For ‘La Boiselle’ read ‘La Boisselle’.
p. 84, entry for 15 July 1916, ll. 7, 10: For ‘La Boiselle’ read ‘La Boisselle’.
p. 89, entry for 28–31 August 1916, l. 10: For ‘La Boiselle’ read ‘La Boisselle’.
p. 89, entry for 1–5 September 1916, l. 8: For ‘La Boiselle’ read ‘La Boisselle’.
p. 108, entry for 28 June 1919, l. 5: For ‘navel’ read ‘naval’.
p. 113, entry for Summer 1920, l. 1: For ‘Trywn’ read ‘Trwyn’.
p. 113, entry for 1 October 1920, l. 6: For ‘Headingly’ read ‘Headingley’.
p. 116, entry for March 1921, l. 2: The address ‘5 Holly Bank’, in the Headingley section of Leeds, is given in the University of Leeds official staff list published in 1921. Although Tolkien wrote to Ingrid Pridgeon, in a letter postmarked August 1968, that he ‘lived for a while in Leeds in a Hollin Lane’ (bloomsbury auctions, sale of 13 March 2008), there is no evidence that this was so. Hollin Lane, in Far Headingley (just north of Headingley proper), connects to Weetwood Lane in which Tolkien’s colleague and mentor at Leeds, George S. Gordon, lived at No. 35.
p. 118, entry for Early 1922, l. 5: For ‘*‘Clarendon Chaucer’’ read ‘‘Clarendon Chaucer’ (see *Geoffrey Chaucer)’.
p. 135, entry for ?1926–?1930: One of the Icelandic au pair girls was Sigriður Þórarinsson, who was introduced to the Tolkiens by May Morris, daughter of William Morris (with whom Sigriður’s cousin Eiríkr Magnússon translated saga literature). The story of her stay with the Tolkiens in Oxford, and of encounters other members of her family had with Tolkien, is told by B.S. Benedikz in ‘Some Family Connections with J.R.R. Tolkien’, Amon Hen 209 (January 2008), pp. 11–13.
p. 138, add new entry:
21 October 1926 Tolkien replies to an enquiry from Willard G. Harding about the etymology of sag.
p. 143, entry for c. 1928, l. 8: For ‘Pictures’ read ‘*Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien (1979; 2nd edn. 1992)’, as this is the first mention of that book in the Chronology.
p. 144, entry for c. 1928, l. 3: For ‘p. 5’ read ‘p. 4’.
p. 145, entry for Late March–early April 1928, l. 8: For ‘1928’ read ‘1929’.
p. 146, entry for ?Summer 1928, l. 4: For ‘Summer’ read ‘summer’.
p. 146, entry for July–August 1928, l. 10: For ‘The Vale of Tol Sirion’ read ‘The Vale of Sirion’.
p. 154, add new entry:
29 September 1930 John Suffield, Tolkien's maternal grandfather, dies.
p. 156, entry for ?1931, ll. 3–4: For ‘*Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien (1979; 2nd edn. 1992)’ read simply ‘Pictures’. This was probably once the first mention of Pictures in the Chronology, so had an asterisk and its full title spelled out. Subsequent citations were added, so that the first mention became that on p. 143 (see above).
p. 163: Add new entry:
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 (Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 2, p. 75). Presumably, therefore, by this date Tolkien has in hand a complete translation, though he will never make it ready for publication.
p. 178, entry for 9 August 1935, l. 12: For ‘buiness’ read ‘business’.
p. 181, insert before entry for 14 January 1936:
By 14 January 1936 Tolkien assists R.G. Collingwood, the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford and a colleague at Pembroke College, ‘untiringly with problems of Celtic philology’, as Collingwood will write in the preface (dated 14 January 1936) to Books I–IV of Roman Britain and the English Settlements by Collingwood and J.N.L. Myres (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936; 2nd edn. 1937), p. vii. On p. 264, Collingwood mentions in a footnote regarding Sulis, the goddess of the hot springs at Bath, that ‘she is traditionally called Sul; but Professor Tolkien points out to me that the Celtic nominative can only be Sulis, and our authority for believing that even the Romans made a nominative Sul on the analogy of their own word sol – perhaps meaning the same – is not good. The Celtic sulis may mean ‘the eye”, and this again may mean the sun.’
p. 190, entry for 17 January 1937: On looking at this again, we wonder how we could have left out a comment by Tolkien in his letter to C.A. Furth, which here would fall after the sentence ‘He would welcome Furth’s advice.’
He did not imagine that Mr. Bliss was worth so much trouble. ‘The pictures seem to me mostly only to prove that the author cannot draw’ (Tolkien-George Allen & Unwin archive, HarperCollins).
p. 206, entry for 23 November 1937, ll. 3, 5: For ‘Governor’ and ‘Governors’ read (as a matter of style in the Companion and Guide) ‘governor’ and ‘governors’.
p. 214, entry for 23 February 1938, l. 1: For ‘Governors’ read ‘governors’.
p. 216, entry for 25 May 1938, l. 1: For ‘Governors’ read ‘governors’.
p. 217, entry for 29 June 1938: Add: ‘– At the University of St Andrews, the Faculty of Arts recommends that Tolkien be invited to deliver the Andrew Lang Lecture for 1941. (In the event, Tolkien will be invited to give the 1939 Lecture instead, the original nominees for 1939 and 1940 having declined the honour.)’
p. 222, add new entry:
8 October 1938 Andrew Bennett, Secretary of the University Court at the University of St Andrews, writes to Tolkien, inviting him to deliver an Andrew Lang Lecture (i.e. On Fairy-Stories). (In the published Chronology, the lecture is first mentioned in the entry ‘1938–early 1939’.) Tolkien will quickly send a positive reply.
p. 222, entry for 14 October 1938: Add: ‘– Andrew Bennett of the University of St Andrews acknowledges Tolkien’s letter sent on or after 8 October.’
p. 225, entry for 18 January 1939: Add: ‘– Andrew Bennett of the University of St Andrews, having heard nothing from Tolkien since October concerning arrangements for the 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture, writes to him again.’
p. 225, add new entry:
1 February 1939 Tolkien replies to Andrew Bennett’s letter of 18 January, suggesting 8 March as the date for his lecture at St Andrews and giving its topic as ‘fairy-stories’.
p. 248, entry for 12 June 1941, l. 4: Delete the extraneous comma after ‘Oxley’.
p. 259, entry for 12 March 1943, ll. 1–4: On the subject of examinations for Allied prisoners of war, see also Adrian Gilbert, POW: Allied Prisoners in Europe, 1939–1945 (London: John Murray, 2006), p. 197.
p. 269, entry for 25 April 1944, ll. 6–7: For the two references to ‘John’, read ‘Christopher’.
p. 283, entry for 14 November 1944: Add: ‘– At a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society (*Societies and clubs), Tolkien is one of three men proposed for membership.’
p. 285, entry for 18 December 1944, ll. 7–8: Further in regard to the ‘book in collaboration’ mentioned here, see addendum to our Reader’s Guide entry on Lewis.
p. 287, entry for 20 February 1945: With the addition, above, to the entry for 14 November 1944, delete here, l. 2, ‘(*Societies and clubs)’. Also delete, l. 3, ‘*Father Martin D’Arcy’, who resigned his membership in the Society before Tolkien attended his first meeting on 13 November 1945.
p. 295, add new entry:
13 November 1945 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Wadham College by Maurice Bowra, Professor of Poetry and Warden of Wadham. Twelve members are present. Bowra reads a paper on the Provençal poet and troubadour Arnaud Daniel.
p. 299, add new entry:
19 February 1946 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Exeter College by R.M. Dawkins. Twelve members and a guest are present. B.H. Sumner, University Lecturer in eastern European history and Warden of All Souls, reads a paper on ‘Ciò che è vivo e ciò che è morto nell’opera di Dante’.
p. 301, add new entry:
28 May 1946 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Trinity College by C.N. (later Sir Cyril) Hinshelwood, Dr Lee’s Professor of Chemistry. Eleven members are present. Professor Alfred Ewert, a scholar of early French literature, reads a paper, ‘Technicalities’.
p. 310, entry for 15 November 1946: Add: ‘– Tolkien hosts a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society at Merton College. Ten members are present. Colin Hardie reads a paper, ‘Virgil in Dante’.’
p. 313, add new entry:
18 February 1947 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Magdalen College by Professor A.P. d’Entrèves, the Serena Professor of Italian Studies at Oxford. Eleven members are present. Professor d’Entrèves reads Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto XXVIII, and Colin Hardie reads a note on Dante’s Matilda.
p. 316, add new entry:
27 May 1947 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Wadham College by Maurice Bowra. Thirteen members are present. Professor C.N. Hinshelwood reads a paper on Dante’s use of allegory.
p. 316, entry for 28 May 1947, l. 2: For ‘Tolkien’ read ‘Unwin’.
p. 325, entry for 11 November 1947: Add: ‘– Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Exeter College by Professor W.J. Entwistle, a scholar of Spanish and Portuguese studies. Eleven members and a guest are present. Tolkien reads a paper on lusinga, referring to Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto I, and Inferno, Canto XVIII.’
p. 327, add new entry:
31 December 1947 C.S. Lewis writes to Margaret Douglas. He tells her that The Lord of the Rings is still not finished, and comments that Tolkien ‘works like a coral insect’ (Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3 (2006), p. 1579).
p. 332: Add new entry:
23 April 1948 Tolkien adds a note to the penultimate synoptic time-scheme for The Lord of the Rings.
p. 333, entry for 25 May 1948: Add: ‘– Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Magdalen College by Clement C.J. Webb, a philosopher and theologian. Eleven members and a guest are present. The latter, His Excellency the Italian Ambassador, Duke Gallarati-Scotti, reads a paper on Dante’s Pietra poems.’
p. 335, entry for 14 August–14 September 1948, l. 2 from bottom: The sketch of Mount Doom on p. 42 of Sauron Defeated is also reproduced, more clearly, in Pictures, no. 30A.
p. 340, entry for End of September–early October 1948: The range of dates for this entry would be given more precisely as between 29 September and 7 October 1948.
p. 343, add new entry:
9 November 1948 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Magdalen College by Colin Hardie. Nine members are present. C.S. Lewis reads a paper on the imagery of the last ten cantos of Dante’s Paradiso.
p. 345, add new entry:
15 February 1949 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Trinity College by Professor Alfred Ewert. Ten members are present. Colin Hardie reads a paper, ‘Dante and the Virgilian Bucolic’.
p. 349, add new entry:
24 May 1949 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at All Souls College by Professor E.F. Jacob, a historian. Eleven members are present. Professor Jacob reads a paper on the feudal hierarchy in Dante’s Paradiso.
p. 353, add new entry:
8 November 1949 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Exeter College by R.M. Dawkins. Nine members are present. Professor W.J. Entwistle reads a paper, ‘Quante Commedie: The Epistle (X) to Con Grande’.
p. 355, entry for 31 December 1949: According to Charlotte Cory, ‘the woman who drew narnia’, Pauline Baynes visited Tolkien on this date, but found him about to leave to play squash. Correspondence in the George Allen & Unwin archive at Reading and at the Bodleian Library, Oxford suggests either that Tolkien abandoned or delayed his plan, or that Pauline stayed for a brief visit with Edith Tolkien. Pauline wrote to Tolkien on 2 July 1962 that she vividly recalled how sweet Mrs Tolkien was to her, on a visit to the Tolkiens one afternoon some years earlier, and how nervous Pauline was of meeting Tolkien. Also in June 1962, in a letter to Pauline Baynes, Ronald Eames of Allen & Unwin referred to a visit by Pauline to Oxford during the production of Farmer Giles of Ham, to discuss her illustrations with Tolkien: this would suggest a date earlier than December 1949, Farmer Giles having been published in October, but contemporary letters do not indicate any face-to-face meeting between Tolkien and Baynes in the preceding spring or summer.
p. 357, entry for 14 February 1950: Replace with: ‘Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Exeter College by Professor Sir Cyril Hinshelwood. Twelve members are present. Colin Hardie reads a paper on Dante’s interpretation of classical mythology in the Divine Comedy.’ The entry as given in Chronology was based on a handwritten notice of the meeting then forthcoming, retained in the Tolkien Papers at the Bodleian Library. ‘Hushwood’ is a misreading of ‘Hinshelwood’. The corrected entry reflects information given in the Society’s minutes. The location of the meeting was changed from Magdalen College, where Professor d’Entrèves was to be the host. Professor Hinshelwood’s paper was not presented until 19 February 1952.
p. 362, add new entry:
23 May 1950 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Keble College by historian J.E.A. Jolliffe. Nine members are present. Colin Hardie reads a paper on Dante’s first mention of Virgil in Canto 25 of La Vita nuova.
p. 370, entry for 8 November 1950: Add: ‘– Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Bailliol College by Sir Maurice Powicke, the Regius Professor of History. Twelve members are present. Powicke reads a paper on the Bull Pastoralis Cura and King Robert of Naples.’
p. 370, entry for 10–12 November 1950, l. 9: For ‘Les études d’anglais a l’Université d’Oxford’ read ‘Les études d’anglais à l’Université d’Oxford’ (‘a’ with a grave accent).
p. 372, entry for 13 February 1951: Add: ‘– Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Magdalen College by C.S. Lewis. Nine members are present. Professor A.P. d’Entrèves reads a paper on Dante’s political theory.’
p. 375, add new entry:
22 May 1951 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Wadham College by Sir Maurice Bowra. Ten members are present. Bowra reads a paper on Sordello (in Dante’s Purgatorio). A proposal to increase the number of regular members to fourteen is narrowly rejected. Professor Powicke, having resigned in November 1950, is elected an honorary member.
p. 377, entry for 10 September 1951: For ‘congessistes’, l. 3, read ‘congressistes’. For ‘dialect’, l. 16, read ‘dialecte’.
p. 378, entry for 25 October 1951, l. 1: For ‘writes this date written’ read ‘writes this date’.
p. 379, add new entry:
13 November 1951 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Exeter College by R.M. Dawkins. Ten members are present. Professor Alfred Ewert reads a paper on Dante’s ‘De Vulgari Eloquentia, l. II, c. 7’. Tolkien offers to entertain the Society at Merton at its next meeting; in the event, it will meet at Magdalen, hosted by Professor d’Entrèves.
p. 381, entry for 7 December 1951, l. 6: For ‘quinqennium’ read ‘quinquennium’.
p. 383, add new entry:
19 February 1952 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Magdalen College by Professor A.P. d’Entrèves. Ten members are present. Professor Sir Cyril Hinshelwood reads a paper on the quality of Dante’s visual imagination. Tolkien again offers to entertain the Society at Exeter College at its next meeting, and this time will do so. It is agreed that no paper would be read on that occasion, but members might produce short notes, and a canto of the Divine Comedy should be read.
p. 384, entry for 27 May 1952: Replace with: ‘Tolkien hosts a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society at Merton College. Ten members are present. Professor W.J. Entwistle reads a note on Dante’s Convivio II.iv, on his Paradiso, Cantos 27, 30, 100, and 114, and on his letter to his patron, Cangrande della Scala on the motion (in medieval astronomy) of the sphere of the fixed stars. Professor A.P. d’Entrèves reads Dante’s Paradiso, Canto XXXIII.’
p. 395, add new entry:
10 February 1953 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at All Souls by E.F. Jacob, Chichele Professor of Modern History. Twelve members are present. C.S. Lewis reads a paper, ‘Statius and Dante’.
p. 399, add new entry:
26 May 1953 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Magdalen College by C.S. Lewis. Ten members are present. Professor A.P. d’Entrèves reads Dante’s Inferno, Canto XXVIII, and Dr. Lorenzo Minio-Paluello, Senior Lecturer in Medieval Philosophy at Oxford, reads Dante’s Paradiso, Canto III.
p. 403, entry for ?August 1953–?first half of 1954: In his introduction to Unfinished Tales Christopher Tolkien comments on the planned index of names in The Lord of the Rings: ‘it seems that my father began to work on it in the summer of 1954, after the first two volumes had gone to press’ (p. 12). We have dated the beginning of this work instead roughly to August 1953, on the basis of Tolkien’s remark to Rayner Unwin on 31 August 1953 that he had found The Lord of the Rings to need ‘the making of a rough index of place-names (and distances)’ (see p. 407). In the present entry, we should have added that the essay The Istari is related by Christopher Tolkien to the unfinished Lord of the Rings index, though it is ‘wholly uncharacteristic of the original index in its length, if characteristic of the way in which my father often worked’ (Unfinished Tales, p. 12). The Istari material, in fact, was not included with the copy of the unfinished index provided us for use when writing The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion.
p. 418, entry for 7 December 1953: Add: ‘C.S. Lewis writes to Tolkien. He has been reading a proof of The Fellowship of the Ring. ‘The spell does not break. The love of Gimli and the departure from Lothlórien is still almost unbearable.’ During this reading he became more aware of the ‘gradual coming of the shadow . . . over Boromir’. He has sent some words to Allen & Unwin which might be suitable for a blurb, but he warns that, coming from him, they may do more harm than good (Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3 (2006), p. 384).’
p. 423, add new entry:
16 February 1954 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Trinity College by Professor Alfred Ewert. Nine members are present. Dr. Lorenzo Minio-Paluello reads a paper on the philosophical background of Dante’s Monarchia.
p. 430, entry for 8–15 May 1954: An expansive account of the efforts to bring C.S. Lewis to the Cambridge chair is Brian Barbour, ‘Lewis and Cambridge’, Modern Philology 96, no. 4 (May 1999), pp. 439–84; see especially pp. 459–65, in which Tolkien figures.
p. 431, entry for 17 May 1954: A portion of Tolkien’s letter to Sir Henry Willink was published in Brian Barbour, ‘Lewis and Cambridge’, Modern Philology 96, no. 4 (May 1999), pp. 463–4. A shorter, slightly edited extract appears in C.S. Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, p. 475, misdated 18 May.
p. 432, entry for 25 May 1954: Add: ‘– Tolkien attends a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society hosted at Keble College by J.E.A. Jolliffe. Eleven members are present. Professor A.P. d’Entrèves reads Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto VIII, and Dr. Lorenzo Minio-Paluello reads from Dante’s Vita nuova.’
p. 440, entry for 2 October 1954: Add, following the first sentence: ‘Simonne d’Ardenne, who had proposed that Tolkien be awarded an honorary degree, presents him at the ceremony and describes him as ‘l’autorité mondiale en philologie anglaise, le commentateur génial du Beowulf et del’Ancrene Wisse, l’admirable traducteur de Sire Gauvain et le Chevalier Vert . . . le savant éditeur de textes du Moyen Age anglais (qui se cache volontiers derrière la signature moins discrète de ses anciens élèves . . .’’
(http://www.jrrvf.com/forum/noncgi/Forum3/HTML/000234.html).
p. 449, entry for 15 February 1955: Replace with: ‘At a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society, Tolkien’s resignation is accepted with regret.’
p. 450, entry for 2 March 1955: Add: ‘– Tolkien writes to Derrick Parnum, belatedly in reply to a letter. He is not concerned that Parnum had omitted his title ‘Professor’ in correspondence, as he has been one for so long that it no longer seems important to him, and until recently in Oxford it was not used as a form of address. Parnum apparently having given the first volumes of The Lord of the Rings as birthday presents, Tolkien comments on presents, mentioning in particular that he had once received a pair of binoculars after making a casual remark about a ‘blackbird friend’. In regard to The Lord of the Rings, the book was meant primarily as ‘a good tale of its kind, written first of all for my own satisfaction, there being very little of that kind of literature available, and I need more’. Although it is not an allegory, Tolkien has found that the more one puts into a story ‘the more capable it becomes of being generally or particularly applied to other matters’ (Sotheby’s, English Literature, History, Private Press, Children’s Books and Illustrations, auction catalogue, London, 13 December 2007, p. 230).’
p. 460, entry for 14 July 1955, l. 6: For ‘they should they’ read ‘they should’.
p. 462, entry for 28 July 1955, l. 7: For ‘Lossarnach, i.e. Italy: Venice and Assisi’ read ‘Lossarnach’, i.e. ‘Italy: Venice and Assisi’’ (three quotation marks added).
p. 469, entry for 7 August 1955, l. 4 from bottom: Elena Rossi tells us that ‘in Italian giorni feriali [which we had glossed as ‘Sundays of no special importance’] are all the days that are not Sundays or other festivities’.
p. 476: Add new entry:
4 October 1955 George Allen & Unwin commission Pauline Baynes to draw, for a newspaper advertisement of The Return of the King, the standard of the King described in The Lord of the Rings, Book VI, Chapter 4, on which ‘a white tree flowered upon a sable field beneath a shining crown and seven glittering stars’.
p. 485, entry for 23 February 1956, l. 1: For ‘Electors’ read (as a matter of style in the Companion and Guide) ‘electors’.
p. 489, l. 11 from bottom: For ‘provide a quite a large’ read ‘provide quite a large’.
p. 498, add new entry:
20 December 1956 Tolkien sends greetings, presumably for Christmas, to one of his former students, Deirdre Levinson, and asks if there is anything he can send her as a gift.
p. 504, entry for 24 April 1957, l. 4: For ‘is at present is’ read ‘at present is’.
p. 508, entry for 26 June 1957: Add: ‘Tolkien writes to his former student, Deirdre Levinson, who is in South Africa. He comments on conditions in that country, and gives Levinson news of various appointments in Oxford, including Nevill Coghill as the Merton Professor of English Literature, and Elaine Griffiths as a Lecturer. Tolkien was shocked by the death of Roy Campbell but relieved by the general tone of his obituaries. He is sorry ‘to be pinned down to beer, especially in quantity. On the whole it goes down better with tobacco than other drinks; but I have never been a gargantuan swiller of it’ (Michael Silverman, Catalogue 23 (2004), item 98).’
p. 514, entry for 13 November 1957, l. 1: For ‘Board of Electors’ read ‘board of electors’.
p. 520, add new entries:
17 February 1958 At 12.45 a.m. Tolkien writes to Jonathan Wordsworth, confirming or proposing a dinner date at Merton College on 25 February.
25 February 1958 Tolkien waits in his room at Merton College (Fellows 4) for Jonathan Wordsworth to arrive, and takes him to dinner in Hall at 7.30 p.m.
p. 530, entry for ?30 August 1958: On balance of further evidence, for ‘?30 August’ read ‘?1 September’. We based the date ?30 August on Sayer’s biography Jack, p. 375, where he quotes a letter from C.S. Lewis of 15 August 1958 (see also Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, p. 965, where the letter is dated 19 August 1958) stating ‘from about Aug 30th to Sept 6 – W[arren] in Ireland and Joy taking the boys away for a jaunt’ and inviting Sayer to stay. But in a later letter to Sayer, 23 August 1958 (not mentioned in Jack; see Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, p. 966), Lewis suggests that Sayer arrive at lunchtime on 1 September, that they drive to Malvern on the 2nd, that they return to Lewis’s home (the Kilns) on the 4th, that Sayer leave for his home on the 5th, and that they should ‘arrange for lunch at Studley with Humphrey [Havard] and Tolkien on 1st or 4th or 5th’. Sayer indicates that the visit to Studley was in the evening of the day he arrived in Oxford, and that on his reaching the Kilns, Joy insisted that Sayer accompany her with her shotgun to scare off village boys who had broken into their estate. It may be that Sayer and Lewis went to Studley in the evening of 1 September, as Joy obviously did not depart for the ‘jaunt’ until after lunch. Lewis himself seems confused in his letter of 23 August: he invites Sayer to arrive at lunch time on the 1st, but also suggests lunch at Studley on that same day.
p. 535, add new entry:
28 October 1958 An elector to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, C.S. Lewis writes to ask Tolkien’s views as the outgoing holder of the chair. He thinks that it would be nice to see Tolkien at the Monday morning meetings in the Bird and Baby (Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3 (2006), p. 983).
p. 536, entry for 10 November 1958: Add: ‘C.S. Lewis writes to Tolkien, who has probably suggested a meeting in response to Lewis’s letter of 28 October. Lewis thinks that it might be easier to arrange a meeting after the end of term. Has he heard that E.R. Eddison’s Mezentian Gate has now been published. Perrault’s Contes des fées having been made a set book to Part 1 of the Modern Languages Tripos at Cambridge, some of Tolkien’s ‘most important doctrines’ (i.e. expressed in On Fairy-stories) will soon have ‘a wider circulation’ (Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3 (2006), p. 988).’
p. 542, entry for 22 April 1959: Add: ‘C.S. Lewis writes to Nathan C. Starr: ‘There is still a weekly meeting at the Bird and Baby: but whether you can call it the Old Group when there is a new landlord and Charles Williams is dead and Tolkien never comes is almost a metaphysical question . . .’ (Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3 (2006), p. 1040).’
p. 551, entry for 9 October 1959, l. 3: For ‘You make take’ read ‘You may take’.
p. 564, entry for November and December 1960, l. 15: For ‘Lüthien’ read ‘Lúthien’.
p. 566, entry for 5 January 1951, l. 7: For ‘probably’ read ‘probable’.
p. 569, entry for 7 February 1961, l. 7: For ‘An publisher’ read ‘A publisher’.
p. 575, entry for 19 May 1961, l. 4: In regard to ‘300 pictures’, according to Cor Blok himself, he painted ‘about 140 pictures’ for The Lord of the Rings (‘Pictures to Accompany a Great Story’, Lembas Extra (Wapenveld, Netherlands: Tolkien Genootschap Unquendor; Leiden: Tolkienwinkel, 2007), pp. 4–15).
p. 581, entry for ?December 1961: According to the artist himself, Cor Blok’s visit to Tolkien took place not at the end of 1961, but by the end of August of that year. On 23 August he visited Rayner Unwin, who made an appointment for Blok to see Tolkien. ‘A selection of my pictures had been forwarded to Tolkien beforehand. All I took with me on that occasion was a small number of Barbarusian miniatures [paintings related to an imaginary country, Barbarusia], to show how it all came about. . . . The interview lasted for about an hour and a half, and the discussion, of course, ran mainly on the subject of illustrations. Tolkien showed me some of his own drawings, and I remember some remarks being made on matters of language’ (‘Pictures to Accompany a Great Story’, pp. 8–9).
p. 584, add new entry:
1962 Tolkien and Rayner Unwin assist the artist Cor Blok in arrangements to have some of his pictures shown at Oxford. The plan is ultimately abandoned.
p. 603, entry for 24 December 1962: Add: ‘Lewis’s ‘philosophy of history’ depends on one of Tolkien’s sentences: ‘Deeds were done which were not wholly in vain’ (Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3 (2006), p. 1396).’
p. 603: Delete entry for Early 1963.
p. 604, add new entry:
6 February 1963 Tolkien replies to a letter of appreciation from Mr Elliott-Howard. He comments on Pauline Baynes’s illustrations for The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book and Farmer Giles of Ham. He apologises for not writing more, but is hard pressed ‘and as reluctant to work as a dormouse prematurely awakened’ (www.maggs.com, visited 4 December 2006).
p. 604, entry for 22 February 1963: Add: ‘– Jane Neave dies.’
p. 613, add new entry:
?16 December 1963 Tolkien replies to a letter of appreciation sent him on 28 September by Baronne A. Baeyens of Germany, sending with his letter proper a covering (secretarial?) note dated 16 December. The note mentions Tolkien’s poor health and his pleasure that Baeyens rejects an allegorical interpretation of The Lord of the Rings. In the longer letter he states that he intended to write an exciting, readable story within the scope of his own interests in history, languages, and ‘landscape’.
p. 615, entry for 1964: Add: ‘The Dutch artist Cor Blok writes to Tolkien. As Blok is preparing an exhibition, Taal en Teken (‘Language and Sign’), on the use of languages and symbols, he asks Tolkien about the latter’s experiences as an inventor of languages for Middle-earth. Tolkien replies, but only to beg to be excused a longer letter as he is very busy.’
p. 622, entry for 30 August 1964, l. 8: For ‘unimportant’ read ‘unimportant)’, with a closing parenthesis.
p. 634, add new entry after that for 31 May 1965:
Second half of 1965 On Tolkien’s behalf and from his dictation, Baillie Knapheis writes a letter to a reader about The Lord of the Rings, reporting inter alia that the name of Merry’s wife was not recorded. Tolkien, however, in an added manuscript note, says that he ‘believes’ that Merry had married a sister of Fredegar Bolger, and will look into the matter (see The Peoples of Middle-earth, p. 117, n. 1.
p. 651, entry for 1966, ll. 10–11: For ‘edited , who edits them and they are published’ read ‘edited by Bliss and published’.
p. 655, entry for 9 February 1966, l. 3: For ‘Farmer Files’ read ‘Farmer Giles’.
p. 656, entry for 21 February 1966, l. 1: For ‘writes two’ read ‘writes to’.
pp. 687–8, entry for 29 January 1967: Alter date to ‘21 March 1967’ and relocate in chronological sequence. Tolkien’s letter to Humphrey Carpenter has been listed for sale by George Houle Autographs on abebooks.com since at least 2001, always with the date ‘29 January 1968’. We knew, however, from other evidence that the year of the letter had to be 1967, and for the sake of its Chronology entry assumed that ‘1968’ was a misprint for ‘1967’ but that the day and month were correct. This too was wrong, as we now see in an eBay listing of the letter by the same dealer, still with the incorrect date in the description but including a reproduction of the typed letter signed which clearly shows that it is dated 21 March 1967.
p. 700, entry for 21 June 1967, l. 11: For ‘have be’ read ‘have been’.
p. 704, entry for 5 August 1967, l. 7: We note Donald K. Fry’s use of prequel on 5 August 1967, and say that this was ‘presumably originated by Fry’. The draft revision of the Oxford English Dictionary for March 2007 cites an earlier use of the word, in 1958 by Anthony Boucher. Fry, however, may have coined it independently.
p. 708, entry for 18 September 1967: Add: ‘Tolkien replies to a letter from Elsie Honeybourne, who has written expressing her pleasure in The Lord of the Rings, especially the names contained in it. Tolkien comments on his own pleasure and surprise in finding that so many people share his feelings about The Lord of the Rings, which had been written in accord with his personal tastes. He finds the surname Honeybourne delightful, and suitable to be added to a more complete map of the Shire. He explains its origin as a place-name and its meaning.’
p. 714, add new entry:
21 December 1967 Tolkien writes to Elsie Honeybourne. He comments further on the name Honeybourne, that the description of Pippin’s ride at the end of Book III of The Lord of the Rings provides a needed easing of tension, and that ‘to ride with Gandalf must have been like being borne by a Guardian Angel, with stern gentleness a most comforting combination’. He is sending Honeybourne a copy of Smith of Wootton Major, which he again calls, echoing his letter to Roger Lancelyn Green of 12 December, ‘an old man’s tale, mainly concerned with ‘retirement’ and bereavement’
(http://www.bloomsburyauctions.com, for sale of 24 May 2007).
p. 720, entry for 6 March 1968: Add: ‘Tolkien writes to Julius Rothman, declining ‘foundation’ membership in the James Branch Cabell Society.’
p. 731, entry for 7 August 1968, ll. 4–5: For ‘she should she give’ read ‘she should give’.
p. 735, add new entry:
16 October 1968 Tolkien writes to Niall Hoskin, who has sent queries about linguistic matters, including Tolkien’s ‘Westron’. Tolkien explains that he has no time to provide further linguistic information to individual enquirers. He would enjoy ‘setting out and arranging detailed information concerning the Elvish languages . . . a task needing much labour’, but work on such a book must wait until after the publication of ‘The Silmarillion’, which has been much delayed by the weight of his correspondence. In a postscript, he queries a reference in Hoskins’ letter to ‘the ‘practical’ Westron’ since he (Tolkien) has not provided sufficient information ‘for an estimate of its style or quality’ (http://www.tolkienlibrary.com, viewed 13 May 2007).
p. 736, entry for 16 November 1968, l. 4: For ‘Queen’s College’ read ‘Queens’ College’.
p. 741, entry for 20 March 1969: A further description of Tolkien’s letter to Amy Ronald may be found in vol. 2, p. 464.
p. 743, entry for ?Early Summer 1969: Replace with the following, moved to its correct place in the chronology:
9 May 1969 Rayner Unwin writes to Pauline Baynes, proposing that Allen & Unwin publish a poster-map of Middle-earth, with art by Baynes, to compete with a map of Middle-earth issued in the United States (presumably that drawn by Barbara Remington and published by Ballantine Books).
p. 747: Add new entry:
Between late October or the beginning of November 1969 and November 1970 Tolkien writes a private memorandum including, among other things, notes on the relative heights of Hobbits and of the members of the Fellowship of the Ring.
We made extensive use of these notes in The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion (2005), pp. 3–4, 107, 229, 244–5, 265, 272, 447, and 493. Christopher Tolkien had earlier published part of the same material in Unfinished Tales (1980), pp. 286–7.
p. 751: Add entry:
Between 11 and 27 November 1970 Tolkien apparently discusses with Rayner Unwin Pauline Baynes’ Map of Middle-earth and the proposed Hobbit poster-map to be drawn by Baynes.
p. 754, add new entry:
21 June 1971 Tolkien writes to B.D.H. Miller of Brasenose College, Oxford, thanking him for a copy of Modern English Syntax, his revision of C.T. Onions’ Advanced English Syntax.
p. 767, add new entry:
28 October 1972 Tolkien is in Cambridge visiting J.A.W. Bennett. While there he autographs a copy of The Hobbit and inscribes it with the address of Bennett's home (10 Adams Road) and the date.
p. 770, add new entry:
6 February 1973 Tolkien replies to a request from Mr J.C. Cook and Mr M. Roland to autograph books. Since he is unwell, he cannot make a firm appointment, but if he is available, he will see them if they call at 21 Merton Street. He suggests that around 4.00 p.m. would be a good time to find him there.
p. 777, entry for August–early September 1911, ll. 7–9: For ‘live; nor does he mention . . . (Biography, p. 71)’ read ‘live. Records show, however, that it was Colin’s mother, Ellen Brookes-Smith, and Jane Neave who bought Phoenix Farm and the adjoining Manor Farm on 8 July 1911, and other evidence suggests that, although Colin’s father lived at the farms, it was the two women who managed and worked them.’
p. 779, entry for 8–9 July 1915, l. 8: For ‘fig. 4’ read ‘fig. 45’.
p. 781, entry for 6 September 1916 (note), l. 3: For ‘La Boiselle’ read ‘La Boisselle’.
p. 787, entry for Summer 1928 (note), l. 1: For ‘Summer’ read ‘?Summer’.
p. 828, l. 3 after section title: We use the term ‘formal calligraphy’ to distinguish manuscripts written out by Tolkien as art. We know that other manuscripts by Tolkien have been reproduced, and that some of them are in a ‘calligraphic’ script, but for the purposes of our list we do not consider them to be art.
p. 830, ll. 13–14 from bottom: For ‘in chronological order’ read ‘except for the first, in chronological order’.
p. 832: To the list of Tolkien’s published art for The Hobbit, add a sketch of Bilbo, reproduced on plate XII in The History of The Hobbit, Part Two: Return to Bag-End (2007) by John D. Rateliff. On the same plate, The Coming of the Eagles is reproduced for the first time in colour. Tolkien’s ‘facsimile’ of Thorin’s letter to Bilbo is first published in this volume as a preliminary double plate. Details from Tolkien’s preliminary dust-jacket design are utilized for the jackets of the two volumes of The History of The Hobbit.
p. 834, l. 6: The title ‘Plan of Shelob’s Lair’ should be in quotation marks. The entry belongs with the list ‘Maps and Plans’ on p. 835.
p. 834, l. 7: The entry ‘Plan of tunnel at Kirith Ungol’ belongs with the list ‘Maps and Plans’ on p. 835.
p. 834, l. 12: For ‘Sketches of Dunharrow’ read (in quotation marks) ‘Dunharrow’.
p. 834, l. 20: For ‘Orodruin, Mount Doom’ read ‘Orodruin, Mt Doom’.
p. 835, l. 10: ‘Plan of Bree’ should be in quotation marks.
p. 835, ll. 13–14: ‘The Earliest Map . . . in The Hobbit’ should be in quotation marks.
p. 835, l. 15: For ‘Sketch-plan of the scene of the Breaking of the Fellowship’ read (in quotation marks) ‘Sketch-plan of the Scene of the Breaking of the Fellowship’.
p. 835, l. 19: For ‘Map of Minas Morghul and the Cross-roads’ read (in quotation marks) ‘Minas Morghul and the Cross-roads’.
p. 835, l. 23: For ‘Map of the White Mountains and South Gondor’ read (in quotation marks) ‘The White Mountains and South Gondor’.
p. 835, l. 17 from bottom: ‘Minas Tirith and Mindolluin’ should be in quotation marks.
p. 835, l. 15 from bottom: ‘Plan of Minas Tirith’ should be in quotation marks.
p. 835, l. 14 from bottom: ‘Harrowdale’ should be in quotation marks.
p. 835, l. 13 from bottom: For ‘Starkhorn, Dwimerberg and Irensaga’ read (in quotation marks) ‘Starkhorn, Dwimorberg and Irensaga’.
p. 840, list of patterns: Add in sequence: ‘Plant. Pictures, no. 45 (bottom right).’
p. 842, l. 16: For ‘Beowulf ’ read ‘*Beowulf ’. For ‘Unpublished’ read ‘Unpublished, except for very brief extracts’.
p. 845, l. 18: For ‘p. 169’ read ‘p. 168’. Cross-reference to *Arthur and the Matter of Britain.
p. 846, l. 10 from bottom: For ‘Sir Gawain . . .’ read ‘*Sir Gawain . . .’
p. 856, l. 19: For ‘Tinfang Warble’ read ‘*Tinfang Warble’.
pp. 874–6, list of translations of Tolkien’s works:
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, add: Chinese, Korean.
Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, add: Czech.
English and Welsh, add: Czech.
Farmer Giles of Ham, add: Chinese, Korean.
The Hobbit, add: Albanian, *Farsi (Iranian), Georgian, Macedonian, Vietnamese. For ‘Moldavian’ read ‘Moldovan’; for ‘Slovak’ read ‘*Slovak’; for ‘Thai’ read ‘*Thai’.
Leaf by Niggle, add: Chinese, Korean.
Letters from Father Christmas (2004 edn.), add: Catalan, Danish, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish.
The Lord of the Rings, add: Farsi (Iranian), Macedonian, Vietnamese. For ‘Armenian (possibly The Fellowship of the Ring only)’ read ‘Armenian (The Fellowship of the Ring only)’; for ‘Korean’ read ‘*Korean’; for ‘Norwegian’ read ‘Norwegian (Bokmål), Norwegian (Nynorsk)’.
Mr. Bliss, add: Russian.
On Fairy-stories, add: Turkish.
Prefatory Remarks on Prose Translation of ‘Beowulf’, add: Czech.
Roverandom, add: Chinese, Portuguese (Brazilian).
A Secret Vice, add: Czech.
The Shaping of Middle-earth, add: French, Russian.
The Silmarillion, add: Chinese, Farsi (Iranian), Turkish. For ‘Korean’ read ‘*Korean’.
Smith of Wootton Major, add: Chinese, Korean, Macedonian.
Unfinished Tales, add: Estonian, Portuguese (Brazilian).
Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford (Monsters and the Critics version), add: Czech.
The War of the Ring, add: Korean.
Add to list of translations:
The Children of Húrin. Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (lecture): Czech.
p. 876, l. 5 from bottom: Delete ‘Roverandom. Latvian’ (already in existence and listed at head of page).
[ go to home page ]
[ go to addenda and corrigenda page ]