1917 Birth of J.R.R. Tolkien's first son John
[TTIE 11]
1919 Tolkien works as an assistant on the Oxford English Dictionary for two years
[RELATION 17]
1920 Birth of J.R.R. Tolkien's second son Michael
[TTIE 11]
1921 Tolkien begins teaching at the University of Leeds as Reader in the English Language
[RELATION 18; TTIE 11 puts this date at 1920]
1924 Tolkien becomes Professor of English Language at Leeds
[RELATION 17; TTIE 11]
1924 Birth of third son Christopher
[TTIE 11]
1925 Tolkien moves to Oxford, where he serves as Rawlingson Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College for the next 24 years
[RELATION 18; TTIE 11]
1925 Tolkien and E.V. Gordon publish their translation of Sir Gawain and the Greene Knight
[TTIE 11]
1926 Tolkien meets C.S. Lewis and the two enter into a lifelong friendship
[TTIE 11]
1929 Tolkien's forth child, Priscilla, is born
[TTIE 11]
circa 1933 JRRT first begins telling his children of a funny little creature named Bilbo
[TW 1]
circa 1933 Tolkien gives W.P. Ker lecture at Glasgow University
[RELATION 22]
1936 Tolkien completes The Hobbit
[TTIE 11]
1936 Tolkien delivers his address "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" before the British Association
[RELATION 21, 71]
1937 The Hobbit is published, and Tolkien begins working on the "sequel"
[TTIE 11; TW 1]
1938 - 1939 Tolkien writes "Leaf by Niggle"
[RELATION 141; TW 110]
1939 Tolkien delivers his lecture "On Fairy-Stories"
[RELATION 13-14, 21; TTIE 11; TW 8 puts this date at 1938]
1945 Tolkien becomes Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford; a position he
holds until his retirement in 1959
[RELATION 18; TTIE 11]
1947 "Leaf by Niggle" is published in The Dublin Review, a scholarly Catholic journal
[RELATION 73]
1948 "Leaf by Niggle" is published
[TW 110]
1948 The Lord of the Rings is completed
[TTIE 11]
1949 Farmer Giles of Ham is published
[TTIE 11]
1954 The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, the first two portions of The Lord of the Rings, are published
[TTIE 11]
1955 The Return of the King, the final portion of The Lord of the Rings, is published
[TTIE 11]
1957 Tolkien was to travel to the United States to accept honorary degrees from Marquette, Harvard, and several other universities, and to deliver a series
of addresses.
The trip was cancelled due to the ill health of his wife Edith.
Tolkien never made the trip before his death in 1973.
[RELATION 22]
1959 Tolkien retires his professorship at Oxford
[TTIE 11]
The Lord of the Rings (1916 - 1959)
This was a very prolific time for the Oxford professor, both academically, and personally.
His fantastic vision of a place called Middle-earth continued to expand, giving birth to both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
June 1916 Tolkien is assigned to the Lancashire Fusiliers and sent to France where he sees some
action in Somme as second Lieutenant.
Returns to England suffering from shell shock.
[RELATION 11; TTIE 11]
Please come back and visit again!
