by John Garth
JRRT and horses: Priscilla and Michael Tolkien, quoted in Amon Hen 13, 9. (The unsigned report says erroneously that Tolkien began his war service in King Edward’s Horse.)
p.25
‘In fact we have done nothing…’: unsigned ‘Oxford Letter’, KESC, December 1911, 100.
‘predominant vice…’: CLW to JRRT, 27 April 1911; ‘Very lazy’: Lorise Topliffe, ‘Tolkien as an Undergraduate’, Exeter College Association Register, 32.
‘a winger…’: The Stapeldon Magazine, December 1911, 110-11. ‘immensely attracted…’: Letters, 214. The popular edition that JRRT read was W. F. Kirby’s.
Kalevala overdue: RQG to JRRT, 4 October 1911.
p.26
Eliot’s Finnish Grammar was the first written in the English language. JRRT borrowed it from 25 November to 5 December 1911, 25 October to 5 December 1912, and 14 November 1914 to 16 January 1915 (Exeter College library register).
‘It was like discovering…’: Letters, 214. Kullervo: begun 1912 to 1913, according to Letters, 214-15, but ibid. 7 shows that Tolkien was still working on it in October 1914.
‘hurrying and febrile…’: Priestley, The Edwardians, 218.
Brooke and Housman: Parker, The Old Lie, 94.
p.27
Emily Annie Gilson’s death: KESC, June 1907, 36. Thomas Smith, commercial clerk: Corpus Christi Biographical Register 1880-1974.
‘The passing of certain…’, etc.: RQG to JRRT, 4 October 1911. ‘the old shrine’: CLW to JRRT, 19 March 1912.
Mock strike; ‘induce the Library…’: KESC, October 1911, 70, 73.
The Rivals: KESC, March 1912, 14; Biography, 57-8.
p.28
Trought’s death; ‘Poor old Vincent…’: CLW to JRRT, 21 and 22 January 1912.
Trought’s character; ‘some of his verses…’, etc.: KESC, March 1912, 4.
p.29
‘Ishnesses’: Artist, 34-40. Those named here were produced between December 1911 and summer 1913.
pp.29-30
Farnell: Farnell, An Oxonian Looks Back; Letters, 7. His magnum opus was The Cults of the Greek States (1896-1909).
p.30
‘People couldn’t make out…’: interview excerpted in Sibley, Audio Portrait.
Joseph Wright: Letters, 397. Wright’s Comparative Grammar of the Greek Language was published in January 1912.
RCG had expected a First from JRRT: RQG to JRRT, 27 April 1913.
Farnell and German culture: Farnell, An Oxonian Looks Back, 57.
Switch in courses: Letters, 397, 406.
p.31
The Rivals revival: KESC, October 1912, 67-9. Old Boys’ debate: KESC, February 1913, 7-8. JRRT in Birmingham, Christmas 1912: Biography, 59.
Oxford Old Edwardians: JRRT to EMB, 2 February 1913, in Family Album, 35; KESC, December 1911, 101.
RQG with Scopes in France: RQG to MCG, 7 and 13 April 1913.
College clubs: Biography, 54-5, 69, and photograph facing p. 83.
Cards on mantelpiece: KESC, December 1912, 85.
Draws cards: Priestman, Life and Legend, 26.
Role in Stapeldon Society: Stapeldon Society minutes. Colin Cullis was secretary under JRRT’s presidency.
p.32
‘I envy you Smith…’: CLW to JRRT, 20 November 1912.
GBS on King Arthur: KESC, February 1913, 5-6.
‘We have managed to relieve…’: RQG to JRRT, 2 November 1913.
‘I am very anxious to breathe…’: CLW to JRRT, 12 December 1913. CLW presumably refers to JRRT’s planned visit to Cambridge with GBS on 4 December (RQG to MCG, 30 November 1913).
Rugby match: undated report, KESC, March 1914, 11-12. ‘We had such a splendid week-end…’: RQG to MCG, 17 February 1914. Scopes, like GBS, was studying history at Corpus Christi.
p.33
‘The only fear…’: CLW to JRRT, 20 December 1913, written during a visit from GBS. ‘Convention bids me…’: RQG to JRRT, 4 January 1914, written when RQG had just received a summons from GBS to a TCBS meeting. There is no evidence for the view (Biography, 68) that JRRT wrote directly to RQG and CLW with news of his engagement. JRRT’s fear of being cut off from TCBS: GBS to JRRT, 9 February 1916.
p.34
‘hoard the hill-haunter…’: JRRT’s undergraduate translation from the Latin Gesta Danorum, by the twelfth-century Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus; Bodleian Tolkien A21/5.
Speculations on Germanic legend: Bodleian Tolkien A21/9. JRRT on Norse sagas: The Stapeldon Magazine, June 1913, 276.
p.35
Skeat Prize: The Monsters and the Critics, 192; Biography, 69. J. Morris Jones’s Welsh Grammar was published in 1913.
p.36
‘the images drawn…’; ‘One must begin with the elfin…’: Essay Club minutes.
‘international affairs…’: The Stapeldon Magazine, June 1914, 93.
p.37
Prince Lichnowsky: Farnell, An Oxonian Looks Back, 327-8. Sexcentenary dinner: The Stapeldon Magazine, June 1914, 44-5.
Chequers Club ‘Binge’: Priestman, Life and Legend, 25-6.
‘All our festivities…’: L. R. Farnell, ‘Sexcentenary Celebration of the College’, in The Stapeldon Magazine, December 1914, 109.
TWO A young man with too much imagination
p.38
‘A real taste…’: ‘On Fairy-stories’, Monsters, 135.
‘I sense amongst all your pains…’: Letters, 78.
p.39
Language experiments around the outbreak of war: JRRT headed one 1914 college notebook (Bodleian Tolkien A21/10) ‘Toleka, Oksuortia’, a rendering of his name and university in what looks like a nascent form of his 1915 invention, Qenya. Christopher Gilson has pointed out to the author that if -eka translates -kien (cognate with English ‘keen’), the name Toleka may reflect the emergence of the Qenya root EKE (Parma Eldalamberon 12, 35, with derivatives referring to sharp objects such as swords and thorns), perhaps inspired by Old English ecg, ‘edge’, and Old High German ekka. If Tolkien was on the path towards Qenya now, its true codification, however, did not take place until 1915. ‘But yet a pride is ours…’: GBS, ‘Anglia Valida in Senectute’, A Spring Harvest, 50.
p.40
Cornish drawings: Artist, 24-5.
‘The light got very “eerie”’, etc.: Biography, 70-1.
pp.40-1
Birmingham recruitment: Carter, Birmingham Pals, 35-42.
‘Patriotism insists…’: Birmingham Daily Post, 28 August 1914, quoted in ibid. 36.
p.41
T. K. Barnsley, RQG, and the Old Edwardian recruits: RQG to EK, 4 October 1914.
Hilary Tolkien enlists: Family Album, 39; Biography, 72; Heath, Service Record of King Edward’s School, 143. ‘In those days chaps joined up…’: Letters, 53.
p.42
Saxon paternal ancestry: Letters, 218; cf. Biography, 18-19. Germanic tribes: Bodleian Tolkien A21/10.
‘that noble northern spirit…’: Letters, 55-6.
Wright and the wounded Germans: E. M. Wright, The Life of Joseph Wright, ii. 459.
‘I have been accustomed…’: Letters, 37.
‘As the long prosperous years…’: Jenkyns, The Victorians and Ancient Greece, 24.
p.43
‘full of old lays…’: ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth’, Poems and Stories, 79.
‘though as a whole…’: KESC, March 1911, 19-20.
‘man at war…’: ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’, Monsters, 18.
‘a young man…’: Letters, 53.
‘I have nothing to say against Tolkien…’: C. H. Jessop to Stephen Gateley, Family Album, 34.
‘He did not join the Army…’: RQG to EK, 10 March 1916.
p.44
‘a lamentable bore’, etc.: JRRT to Paul Bibire, 30 June 1969, in Hostetter, introduction to ‘The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor’, Vinyar Tengwar 42, 6-7.
‘Eala Earendel…’: Grein/Wülcker, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie, 5. During this crucial period (19 June to 14 O
ctober 1914) Tolkien also borrowed Earle’s The Deeds of Beowulf and Morris’s Old English Miscellany; Exeter College library register.
‘I felt a curious thrill…’: ‘The Notion Club Papers’, Sauron Defeated, 236; see also 285, notes 35 and 36, and Letters, 385.
p.45
‘The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star’: LT2, 267-9; date clarified by Douglas A. Anderson.
‘over the cup…’, etc.: JRRT’s undergraduate translation from Beowulf, line 1208, Bodleian Tolkien A21/9; ‘magnificent expression’, he remarked.
Éarendel and OE ēar: Hostetter, ‘Over Middle-earth Sent Unto Men’, Mythlore 65, 5-10. See also Hostetter and Smith, ‘A Mythology for England’, Proceedings of the JRR Tolkien Centenary Conference, 282.
p.48
‘We are of course very mad…’: RQG to MCG, 7 October 1914. JRRT at the Oratory: Letters, 7.
Birmingham battalions: Carter, Birmingham Pals, 45-7, 63-4.
Despair: Biography, 30.
‘the collapse of all my world’: Letters, 393.
‘It is awful…’: Biography, 72.
pp.48-9
Wartime Oxford: Winter, ‘Oxford and the First World War’, 3-18. Exeter College: The Stapeldon Magazine, December 1914, 103-5.
p.49
‘the Johnner’: CLW to JRRT, 8 December 1916.
Undergraduate activities: Stapeldon Society minutes, 20 October 1914 (letters of support, ‘lowering clouds…’); 27 October (sub-rector, the Superman); 3 November (spelling reform, ‘no doubt…economising…’); 17 November 1914 (stringent economy).
pp.49-50
The Yser: Strachan, The First World War, i. 276. Orange Free State: ibid. 553.
p.50
Exonians and the university OTC: The Stapeldon Magazine, December 1914, 120.
‘We had a drill…’: Letters, 7.
Milton and Dante: RQG to MCG, 22 June 1913.
Rifles taken away: RQG to MCG, 5 November 1914.
‘Oxford “sleepies”’, etc.: Biography, 73.
Kalevala: Letters, 7, and Biography, 73.
p.51
Defence of nationalism: Stapeldon Society minutes, 17 November 1914.
‘I don’t defend “Deutschland über alles”…’: JRRT to CLW, 16 November 1914.
Inherited linguistic aptitude: Letters, 213.
‘I am indeed…’: Letters, 218.
p.52
‘in a speech attempting…’ etc.: KESC, December 1910, 95.
‘The mythological ballads…’: Biography, 59. JRRT on ‘The Finnish National Epic’: Sundial Society minutes.
Essay Club meeting: Letters, 7-8.
p.53
GBS on ‘Éarendel’; ‘I don’t know…’: Biography, 75.
‘Earendel’s boat…’: LT2, 261-3. The only invented names (Kôr, Solosimpë, Eldamar) were additions; apart from these the plot outline certainly predates JRRT’s first onomastic experiments of 1915.
THREE The Council of London
p.54
GBS visits Cambridge; ‘Tolkien was to come too…’, etc.: RQG to MCG, 1 November 1914.
pp.54-5
Humorous styles of Barrowclough, CLW, and GBS: KESC, June 1912, 39-40. ‘a gift for rapping out…’: RQG to MCG, 1 November 1914. ‘I played Rugger yesterday…’: GBS to JRRT, 16 November 1916.
pp.55-6
Rift in TCBS: CLW to JRRT, 10 November (‘I should only go there…’, etc.), 15 November (‘I tell you, when I had finished…’, etc.), and 16 November 1914 (‘TCBS über alles’); JRRT to CLW, 16 November 1914 (‘alien spirit’, etc.).
p.56
RQG enlists; fears missing ‘Council’: RQG to MCG, 6 and
10 December 1914. CLW delays enlisting: CLW to Dr Peter Liddle.
RCG urges delay: RQG to EK, 4 October 1914.
p.57
F. L. Lucas; ‘He is not at all the sort…’, etc.: RQG to MCG, 9 November 1914.
GBS undisciplined: GBS to JRRT, 12 January 1916.
‘much more like a fish…’: RQG to MCG, 6 December 1914.
GBS enlists: GBS service record; Heath, Service Record of King Edward’s School, 133.
‘Ave Atque Vale’ later appeared in Smith, A Spring Harvest, 53-4.
p.58
Cherry Hinton: RQG to MCG, 10 December 1914.
Wiseman hilarity: RQG to MCG, 26 April 1914.
pp.58-9
Council of London: RQG to JRRT, 1 March 1915 (‘absolutely undistracted…’, ‘I never spent…’); Letters, 10 (‘the inspiration that…’, ‘the hope and ambitions…’); Biography, 73. CLW memoir, OEG, says erroneously that the last TCBS meeting was ‘The Council of London…in the summer of 1914 in our house in Routh Road’. (They met again in Lichfield later in 1915.)
TCBS and ‘allowable distance apart’: JRRT to CLW, 16 November 1914.
p.59
Kullervo: Letters, 214-15.
A poet: Biography, 73.
‘I sat on the ruined margin…’: March 1915 version (‘Sea Chant of an Elder Day’), Artist, 45-6, 66. Later, JRRT recalled writing versions of this poem as early as 1910; The Shaping of Middle-earth, 214-15.
p.60
‘That Council…’: Letters, 10.
The Land of Pohja: Artist, 44-5.
Skeat’s Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer and Eliot’s Finnish Grammar (14 November 1914 to 16 January 1915): Exeter College library register.
Studied Finnish for sake of Qenya: Letters, 214.
Birth of Qenya: Parma Eldalamberon 12, iii-v.
‘an entirely different mythological world’: ‘A Secret Vice’, Monsters, 218; Letters, 345.
p.61
liri- and cognates (footnote): Parma Eldalamberon 12, 54.
pp.61-3
Qenya sound-shift ‘laws’: ibid. 3-28; vocabulary: ibid., 29-106.
p.63
‘I have quite lost now…’: RQG to MCG, 13 February 1915.
Hardships of training: ibid., December 1914 to March 1915.
‘My whole endurance…’, etc.; JRRT urged to visit Cambridge: RQG to JRRT, 1 March 1915; CLW to JRRT, 2 March 1915.
Ultimatum: RQG, CLW, and GBS to JRRT, 6 March 1915.
‘When we sent…’: CLW to JRRT, 11 March 1915.
pp.63-4
Confidence on English course: Biography, 63.
p.64
Vacation work: ‘Middle English Texts’, Bodleian Tolkien A21/6. JRRT borrowed vol. ii of Skeat’s Chaucer and Morris’s Old English Miscellany, a set text; Exeter College library register.
‘Sea Chant of an Elder Day’: The Shaping of Middle-earth, 214.
JRRT’s poems circulate: GBS to JRRT [27 March 1915]; RQG to JRRT, 31 March 1915; CLW to JRRT, 15 April 1915.
GBS and ‘The Voyage of Éarendel’: Biography, 75. Eärendel ‘fragments’: GBS to JRRT [27 March 1915].
Georgian Poetry: GBS to JRRT [14 May, 25 June, 9 July 1915]. ‘good authors’; JRRT’s poems ‘amazingly good’: GBS to JRRT [22 March 1915]. GBS urges simplicity: ibid. [27 March 1915]. Conservative perplexity at JRRT’s Romanticism: ibid., 9 February 1916.
Wade-Gery: Barlow, Salford Brigade, 75, 79.
pp.64-5
Wade-Gery on JRRT’s poetry: GBS to JRRT [25 March 1915].
p.65
‘Lo! young we are…’: Biography, 74.
pp.65-6
‘Why the Man in the Moon came down too soon’: A Northern Venture, 17-20 (a close variant in LT1 204-6 is later; Hammond with Anderson, Bibliography, 247, 283). Favoured by GBS and Wade-Gery: GBS to JRRT [22 and 25 March 1915].
‘The man in the moon…’ (trad.): Iona and Peter Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, 346.
p.67
‘Glastonbury’: A Spring Harvest, 13-23. ‘the most TCBSian mosaic…’; sent to JRRT: GBS to JRRT [14 March]; [25 March 1915].
Abortive Oxford meeting: CLW to JRRT, 31 March and 5, 13, and 15 April 1915; GBS to JRRT, 13 April 1915.
GBS’s transfer: ibid., and GBS to JRRT [19 or 26 April 1915] (‘think often of the
TCBS…’); Army List May 1915. It probably took place on 10 May 1915, the start of the second of his two army payroll periods (GBS service record). ‘You can be sure…’, etc.: GBS to JRRT [19 or 26 April 1915].
p.68
‘other literary Oxford lights’, etc.: RQG to Mrs Cary Gilson, 12 September 1915.
Origin of 3rd Salford Pals: Latter, Lancashire Fusiliers, 99.
pp.68-9
Lancashire Fusiliers up to the landing of the 1st Battalion at Gallipoli: Barlow, Salford Brigade, pp. 15-19.
p.70
‘I can’t think where…’, etc.: CLW to JRRT, 25 April 1915.
FOUR The shores of Faërie
p.71
‘Will shall be the sterner…’: ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son’, in Poems and Stories, 79.
p.72
Rupert Brooke: GBS to JRRT, 10 July 1915.
pp.72-3
‘You and Me and the Cottage of Lost Play’: references are to the earliest form, LT1, 27-30.
p.73
‘Indescribable but…’: Biography, 47.
pp.73-4
‘Goblin Feet’: Cole and Earp (eds.), Oxford Poetry 1915, 120-1; excerpted in Biography, 74-5.
pp.74-5
‘Tinfang Warble’: version published in a Catholic journal in Oxford referred to by JRRT as ‘I.U.M.’ (presumably the Inter-university Magazine, the journal of the Federation of University Catholic Societies), 1927, and LT1, 108 (Hammond with Anderson, Bibliography, 344). The earliest, unpublished form was shorter (Douglas A. Anderson to the author).
p.75
‘little one’, etc.: Biography, 67.
‘I wish the unhappy…’: LT1, 32.
Fading of the Elves: LT1, 32, 235; LT2, 142, 159, 281; Morgoth’s Ring, 219, 342.
p.76
‘mistook elves for gnomes…’: CLW to JRRT, 15 April 1915.
‘a strange race…’: MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin, 3.
gnome: Letters, 318, 449; The Peoples of Middle-earth, 76-7; Parma Eldalamberon 12, 67.
‘a little precious’: RWR to JRRT, 2 August 1915. ‘rather spoiled’: ibid., 19 September 1915.
p.77
‘a sort of talisman’: Charlotte Gear and Lionel Lambourne in Martineau (ed.), Victorian Fairy Painting, 153.
‘the war called up…’: Purkiss, Troublesome Things, 279-80.
The play she cites is Britain’s Defenders, or Peggy’s peep into fairyland, a fairy play, Samuel French, 1917, 6.
‘There was a fantastic “scheme”…’: RQG to MCG, 4 March 1915.
