poem The Trumpets of Faery (originally composed in July–August 1915) and gives it a new title, The Horns of the Host of Doriath.
1 October 1924 Term begins at Leeds. Tolkien is now Professor of English Language.
Leeds academic year 1924–1925 The University of Leeds Calendar for 1924–5 lists several lectures or classes for which Tolkien may have responsibility; his application for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (25 June 1925) will indicate courses he taught at Leeds during this academic year, including: History of English on Mondays and Wednesdays at 12.00 noon; Introduction to Germanic Philology on Thursdays at 10.00 a.m.; Essays and Discussions on Fridays from 9.30 to 11.00 a.m.; Linguistic Study of Old and Middle English Texts on Fridays at 11.00 a.m.; Old Icelandic (Second Year) on Fridays at 2.00 p.m.; and Medieval Welsh, an optional subject, at a time to be arranged with Tolkien. He also teaches one or more of the following: Old and Middle English Readers on Mondays at 10.00 a.m.; either Middle English Texts (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) or Chaucer on Thursdays at 12.00 noon; and either Early English Literature or Middle English Texts (Layamon’s Brut: Selections) on Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. He conducts as well a voluntary reading class for the study of additional Old and Middle English texts, on Fridays at 12.00 noon; this attracts more than fifteen students, not all from the linguistic side of the English department.
3 October 1924 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Senate of the University of Leeds.
21 October 1924 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Board of the Faculty of Arts at Leeds.
22 October 1924 Tolkien works on the glossary for the Clarendon Chaucer.
23 October 1924 Tolkien writes to thank Kenneth Sisam for sending a proof of the frontispiece for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and two sets of proofs of the Clarendon Chaucer together with comments by George S. Gordon. He promises to work on the Chaucer in any available ‘cracks’ of free time.
5 November 1924 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Senate of the University of Leeds. He is appointed to the Library Committee.
16 November 1924 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Senate of the University of Leeds.
21 November 1924 Ronald and Edith Tolkien’s third child, Christopher Reuel Tolkien, is born at home in Leeds. His godparents are Wilfred R. Childe, Lecturer in the Leeds English School, and Mrs E.M. Spilmont, apparently the former Miss Moseley from whom Tolkien had rented 5 Holly Bank in Leeds.
Early December 1924 Tolkien and at least some of his family are ill. He informs Kenneth Sisam that this has delayed his work on the Clarendon Chaucer.
5 December 1924 Kenneth Sisam writes to Tolkien, asking to have the glossary for the Clarendon Chaucer by 31 December 1924, and the notes by 31 January 1925. He advises Tolkien that the book cannot stand the cost of a long glossary, and that it is not aimed at readers interested in philology.
8 December 1924 George S. Gordon informs Kenneth Sisam that Tolkien has sent him the manuscript of his glossary for the Clarendon Chaucer, with a preface, for Gordon to examine. – Tolkien attends a meeting of the Senate of the University of Leeds.
20 December 1924 Term ends at Leeds.
22 December 1924 George S. Gordon sends with approval to Kenneth Sisam the manuscript of Tolkien’s glossary and preface for the Clarendon Chaucer.
23 December 1924 Kenneth Sisam writes to George S. Gordon. Tolkien has been warned about the cost of excess proof correction. He will have to pay this himself if he makes as many corrections to the proofs of the Clarendon Chaucer as he did to those of A Middle English Vocabulary. – Tolkien, as ‘Father Christmas’, writes two short letters to his sons John and Michael. Among other things, he is bringing John a station, and Michael an engine (the boys are model train enthusiasts).
Mid- to late 1920s Tolkien creates alphabets in which he refines the work he has done with the Alphabet of Rúmil and the Valmaric script, leading eventually to the Tengwar of the 1930s. Documents of this period are written on paper which Tolkien began to use in summer 1924 as an external examiner at Oxford.
?1925–?1926 Tolkien begins to make a Modern English translation of the Middle English poem Pearl. – Possibly around this time, he and E.V. Gordon plan to produce a joint edition of Pearl similar to their edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Tolkien, however, will make little or no contribution by June 1937.
1925 ‘Gerald of Wales on the Survival of Welsh’, an essay by W. Rhys Roberts, former Professor of Classics at Leeds, is published in the Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion: Session 1923–1924. It contains, among other versions of a prophecy by Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis), one in late twelfth-century English of the South-west Midlands prepared by Tolkien.
?Early 1925 Tolkien writes, but does not finish, an alliterative poem. Each of its three manuscripts has a different title: The Flight of the Gnomes as Sung in the Halls of Thingol; Flight of the Gnomes (added later); and *The Flight of the Noldoli from Valinor.
5 January 1925 Kenneth Sisam writes to George S. Gordon that the glossary for the Clarendon Chaucer must be cut by ten pages. He leaves it to Gordon to discuss with Tolkien how this might be done. – Sisam also writes to Tolkien, returning the glossary and advising him to abandon all easy words and practically all references as a way of reducing its length. He asks how Tolkien is progressing with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – evidently Tolkien is now correcting proofs.
8 January 1925 A review-essay by Tolkien, Philology: General Works, is published in *The Year’s Work in English Studies, vol. 4 (1924, for 1923). He discusses at length some fifteen works (mainly books, some in French or German), and refers to many others in passing.
13 January 1925 Term begins at Leeds.
20 January 1925 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Board of the Faculty of Arts at Leeds.
21 January 1925 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Senate of the University of Leeds.
24 January 1925 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Senate of the University of Leeds.
26 January 1925 Tolkien writes a letter of appreciation to Joseph Wright on his retirement.
4 February 1925 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Senate of the University of Leeds. He is appointed to a committee on the terms of appointment of junior staff.
5 February 1925 Kenneth Sisam reminds Tolkien that he is supposed to have completed the notes for the Clarendon Chaucer by 31 January. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is progressing well through the press.
17 February 1925 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Board of the Faculty of Arts at Leeds.
Late February or early March 1925 Tolkien sends George S. Gordon a revised glossary for the Clarendon Chaucer.
4 March 1925 George S. Gordon sends Tolkien’s revised glossary to Kenneth Sisam, saying that it is now the right length. Gordon feels, however, that Tolkien’s preface is too curt and professional for the school audience at which the book is aimed. He sends Sisam a ‘chattier’ version, which the latter will prefer. – Tolkien attends a meeting of the Senate of the University of Leeds.
17 March 1925 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Board of the Faculty of Arts at Leeds.
23 March 1925 Kenneth Sisam sends Tolkien an advance copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Oxford University Press are to change the binding