The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology. Christina Scull
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from reproductions of real prehistoric cave paintings, purports to show some of the art found in the goblin caves. In addition, Tolkien sends, as from the North Polar Bear, a letter written in an alphabet he has made up from marks in the caves.
?End of 1932–beginning of 1933 Tolkien lends The Hobbit in typescript to C.S. Lewis; at this stage (it seems) the story ends with the death of Smaug, near the end of the chapter ‘Fire and Water’ as finally published in 1937. (See further, entry for The Hobbit in Reader’s Guide.) During the next three years the same typescript will be lent to other friends, including *M.E. (Elaine) Griffiths, a B.Litt. student under Tolkien’s supervision, and the *Reverend Mother St Teresa Gale, Mother Superior at Cherwell Edge in St Cross Road in Oxford, a convent of the Order of the Holy Child Jesus to which was attached a hostel for Catholic women in the Society of Oxford Home-Students.
?1933–?1936 Tolkien writes a substantial part of a long poem, *The Fall of Arthur. It progresses through several different versions and narrative outlines, but is abandoned unfinished after 954 lines. Tolkien will send one version to his friend R.W. Chambers for comment (see entry for 9 December 1934). See note.
15 January 1933 Hilary Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: Elene (continued) and The Vision of the Cross (i.e. The Dream of the Rood) on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 17 January; Old English Textual Criticism on Tuesdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 17 January; Völsunga Saga on Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 19 January; and The Language of the Vespasian Psalter Glosses on Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 20 January.
18 January 1933 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.
25 January 1933 C.S. and Warren Lewis are Tolkien’s guests for dinner at high table at Pembroke College. After dinner they retire to the Common Room for dessert and wine, then stand around the fire talking mainly about Samuel Johnson and Anthony Trollope. Tolkien and the Lewis brothers go to C.S. Lewis’s rooms in Magdalen College for more conversation until 11.00 p.m., when Tolkien drives Warren most of the way home.
26 January 1933 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library.
30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.
3 February 1933 At an English Faculty Board meeting, in Tolkien’s absence, the Applications Committee reports that it has appointed Tolkien and Kenneth Sisam examiners of the B.Litt. thesis of *N.R. Ker of Magdalen College, A Study of the Additions and Alterations in MSS Bodley 340 and 342.
4 February 1933 C.S. Lewis writes to his friend Arthur Greeves: ‘Since term began [15 January] I have had a delightful time reading a children’s story Tolkien has just written [presumably The Hobbit]…. Whether it is really good (I think it is until the end) is of course another question’ (They Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914–1963), p. 449).
9 February 1933 The Oxford Union Society debates the motion ‘that this House will in no circumstance fight for its King and Country’. The motion is carried 275 votes to 153 and is widely discussed in the press.
14 February 1933 Tolkien and Dorothy Everett examine M.E. Carroll of St Hilda’s College viva voce on her B.Litt. thesis, The Phonology of Hampshire Place-Name Forms, at 2.30 p.m. in the Examination Schools. – The Society for the Study of Mediæval Languages and Literature holds its second meeting.
17 February 1933 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting. – He and Dorothy Everett sign their report (written by Tolkien) on the examination of M.E. Carroll.
2 March 1933 Tolkien certifies that S.R.T.O. d’Ardenne has completed course work towards her B.Litt.
8 March 1933 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.
10 March 1933 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting.
11 March 1933 Hilary Full Term ends.
16 March 1933 Tolkien writes to Kenneth Sisam that he hopes to see him at his home at Boar’s Hill, Oxford, on 18 March. Tolkien is very pleased because he has been given a complete set of the Oxford English Dictionary. He has been reading the thesis of N.R. Ker and finds it hard going.
21 March 1933 Tolkien and Kenneth Sisam examine N.R. Ker of Magdalen College viva voce on his B.Litt. thesis, A Study of the Additions and Alterations in MSS Bodley 340 and 342, at 2.30 p.m. in the Examination Schools.
c. 25 March 1933 Tolkien and C.S. Lewis discuss the latter’s response to The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas as a work with no background behind the plot. They remark on how the word romance is used to describe works by authors as different as Dumas and William Morris, and agree ‘that for what we meant by romance there must be at least the hint of another world – one must “hear the horns of elfland”’ (C.S. Lewis, 25 March 1933, They Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914–1963), p. 452).
April 1933 Tolkien’s name is included at the end of a list of twenty scholars, all of them involved in some manner with education, ‘associat[ing] ourselves with the efforts that are being made to introduce Esperanto as a regular subject of instruction, and to encourage its use in the schools of the world’. This manifesto will be published in The British Esperantist for May 1933 as ‘The Educational Value of Esperanto’.
1 April 1933 In Germany the Nazis begin to persecute the Jews. Jewish businesses will be boycotted – most are soon liquidated – and Jewish lawyers and doctors barred from their professions.
14–17 April 1933 The twenty-fourth British Esperanto Congress is held in Oxford, with headquarters at the Randolph Hotel. Tolkien is one of its patrons, together with the Duke of Connaught, the Mayor of Oxford (Alderman G.H. Brown), Sir Michael Sadler, Professor *G.E.K. Braunholtz, Councillor the Rev. John Carter, the Master of Balliol (Dr. A.D. Lindsay), and the Principal of Ruskin College (A. Barratt Brown).
23 April 1933 Trinity Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: Old English Verse Texts (for those beginning the Honour Course) on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 25 April; The Germani on Tuesdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 25 April; and Prolegomena to the Study of Old English and Old Norse Poetry on Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 27 April. E.O.G. Turville-Petre is to teach a class in Old Norse on behalf of Tolkien.
26 April 1933 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.
24 May 1933 The Oxford University Gazette reports that Tolkien has been appointed a Moderator in Literis Graecis et Latinis (Pass Moderations) from the first day of Michaelmas Term 1933 to first day of Michaelmas Term 1934.
12 May 1933 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting.
18 May 1933 Tolkien’s uncle, Thomas Evans Mitton, dies.
8 June 1933 Tolkien chairs an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library. – English Final Honour School Examinations begin. Tolkien is chairman of the examiners.
11 June 1933 At a board meeting of Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag (the Icelandic Literary Society), Sigurður Nordal nominates Tolkien as an honorary member.
16 June 1933 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. He is appointed to the Committee for the Nomination of Public Examiners in the Honour School of English