This list accounts for entries posted beginning 11 July 2008. See here for the complete list of addenda and corrigenda to the Chronology. 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.
p. 4, entry for Summer 1896, l. 12 [REVISED]: 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. 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. 68, entry for ?20 June 1915, l. 18: For ‘Carpatian Street’ read ‘Corporation Street’.
p. 118, entry for Early 1922, l. 5: For ‘*‘Clarendon Chaucer’’ read ‘‘Clarendon Chaucer’ (see *Geoffrey Chaucer)’.
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. 269, entry for 25 April 1944, ll. 6–7: For the two references to ‘John’, read ‘Christopher’.
p. 285, entry for 18 December 1944, ll. 7–8 [REVISED]: Further in regard to the ‘book in collaboration’ mentioned here, see addendum to our Reader’s Guide entry on Lewis.
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. 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. 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. 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. 476: Add new entry:
4 October 1955 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. 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. 2, entry for 15 November 1892 [REVISED]: The Christmas greetings photograph, inscribed and hand-tinted by Mabel Tolkien, may also be seen on the ‘j.r.r. tolkien’s childhood in birmingham’ page on the Birmingham City Council web site.
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. 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. 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 [REVISED]:
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’.
title-page, verso, 13-digit ISBN: For ‘978-261-10381-8’ read ‘978-0-261-10381-8’.
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. 779, entry for 8–9 July 1915, l. 8: For ‘fig. 4’ read ‘fig. 45’.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 449, entry for 15 February 1955: Replace with: ‘At a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society, Tolkien’s resignation is accepted with regret.’
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. 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. 113, entry for Summer 1920, l. 1: For ‘Trywn’ read ‘Trwyn’.
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. 145, entry for Late March–early April 1928, l. 8: For ‘1928’ read ‘1929’.
p. 146, entry for July–August 1928, l. 10: For ‘The Vale of Tol Sirion’ read ‘The Vale of Sirion’.
p. 178, entry for 9 August 1935, l. 12: For ‘buiness’ read ‘business’.
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. 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. 489, entry for 16 April 1956, l. 11 from bottom: For ‘provide a quite a large’ read ‘provide quite a large’.
p. 566, entry for 5 January 1951, l. 7: For ‘probably’ read ‘probable’.
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. 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. 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. 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: Add:
The Children of Húrin. French.
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