The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology. Christina Scull
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the various manuscript readings, which will be useful if they succeed in getting the texts printed. She wishes him success in his forthcoming British Academy Lecture.
27 September 1936 Tolkien replies to a letter from the Reverend Professor Dr A. Pompen in Nijmegen, Holland, who has asked if the Tolkien family would be willing to take a paying guest. Although Tolkien would welcome additional income to offset the cost of accidents this year to himself and one of his sons, and of another son about to enter university, the family are not in a position suitably to entertain a guest. Edith is in poor health, and for help they are reduced to brief daily maid service.
3 October 1936 Tolkien has finished retyping The Hobbit, but sends Allen & Unwin an earlier typescript with the final chapters added.
5 October 1936 Allen & Unwin receive the Hobbit typescript, as well as one illustration for that work, probably one of the maps Tolkien has drawn to accompany the story. – Stanley Unwin writes to Tolkien, acknowledging receipt of the typescript. Both Unwin and his ten-year-old son *Rayner will read it before 20 October. Unwin expresses an interest in publishing Tolkien’s translation of Pearl and asks if he can see it.
10 October 1936 The typescript of The Hobbit is read by Stanley Unwin.
11 October 1936 Michaelmas Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: Beowulf: General Criticism on Tuesdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 13 October; Elene on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 13 October; and Alliterative Verse on Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 15 October. – Tolkien’s eldest son, John, is now a student at his father’s old college, Exeter.
16 October 1936 In the evening, Tolkien attends a dinner of The Society hosted by Nevill Coghill at Exeter College, Oxford. Fifteen members are present. Coghill speaks about the making of good Europeans by an exchange of schoolboys.
21 October–2 November 1936 The children’s author Rose Fyleman, also a free-lance reviewer for Allen & Unwin, reads the Hobbit typescript.
22 October 1936 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Library Committee meeting in the Library.
26 October 1936 R.W. Chapman of Oxford University Press writes to George S. Gordon. He is pleased to learn that Tolkien has received an increase in salary, which he hopes will relieve him of drudgery, and that he has been given a Leverhulme Research Fellowship; but the type for the Clarendon Chaucer has been standing for more than ten years, and Chapman does not think there is much chance that Tolkien will finish his part of the work. Kenneth Sisam has suggested E.V. Gordon or Oxford D.Phil. student *J.A.W. Bennett to replace Tolkien on the project.
27 October 1936 Formation of the Berlin-Rome Axis.
28 October 1936 George S. Gordon replies to R.W. Chapman. He thinks that Tolkien finished most of his annotation years ago, but on too large a scale, and found it too tedious to abbreviate. He will speak to Tolkien about making another effort to finish his work.
30 October 1936 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. He is re-elected to the Applications Committee. It is resolved that the Standing Committee on Applications should meet at 3.30 p.m. on the Thursday preceding the day of the Board’s meeting. – Rayner Unwin writes a favourable review of The Hobbit, for which he is paid one shilling.
c. November 1936 Tolkien writes out a chart of Quenya noun inflections (*‘The Bodleian Declensions’).
4 November 1936 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.
5 November 1936 George S. Gordon has spoken to Tolkien about completing the Clarendon Chaucer. He informs Oxford University Press that Tolkien will try again to do so.
11 November 1936 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.
17 November 1936 Agreement of the German-Japanese Pact.
25 November 1936 Tolkien delivers the Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, to the British Academy in London, setting a new standard in Beowulf criticism.
26 November 1936 Tolkien chairs an English Faculty Library Committee meeting in the Library. He successfully proposes that the Library house the Bibliographia Oxoniensis, for which the Bodleian Library cannot not find room.
28 November 1936 Susan Dagnall visits Tolkien in Oxford. They certainly discuss The Hobbit, and possibly also the Clark Hall Beowulf. On being shown a specimen page for The Hobbit, Tolkien suggests changes. It is perhaps at this point that he hands over five maps to be included in The Hobbit: Thror’s Map, to be tipped in at its first mention in Chapter 1 or at a later mention in Chapter 3, with its ‘moon-letters’ so printed on the verso of the sheet as to be visible when held up to the light (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 85; Art of The Hobbit, fig. 25); Wilderland, a more general map of the lands in which the story takes place (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 84; Art of The Hobbit, fig. 88); and lesser maps of the land between the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood, of the area east of Mirkwood to just east of the River Running (Art of The Hobbit, figs. 46, 83), and of the Long Lake combined with a view of the Lonely Mountain (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 128; Art of The Hobbit, fig. 87). Having been asked by Allen & Unwin to submit any other children’s stories he has written, to be considered for publication, Tolkien gives Susan Dagnall Farmer Giles of Ham and Roverandom, both of which he has retyped and revised, and his picture book, Mr. Bliss. He hands over his translation of Pearl as well. Tolkien and Dagnall also discuss a ‘prolegomena’ by C.S. Lewis which Allen & Unwin are interested in publishing as a text for students (probably his celebrated lectures ‘Prolegomena to Medieval Poetry’ begun in January 1932, much later partly the basis of his book The Discarded Image). Tolkien promises to ask Lewis about it.
2 December 1936 Stanley Unwin sends Tolkien a signed duplicate contract for The Hobbit, the final step in the process of accepting the work for publication.
4 December 1936 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. – He also attends a Pembroke College meeting. – Susan Dagnall sends Tolkien a revised specimen page of The Hobbit for approval. She asks him to write a short paragraph describing the book, for Allen & Unwin to use in their forthcoming announcements list and for publicity.
5 December 1936 Michaelmas Full Term ends. – Simonne d’Ardenne again writes to Tolkien that she will send him her article on the Brussels Cross as soon as it is finished, and asks him to give her English prose some ‘Tolkienian’ flavour.
8 December 1936 Tolkien writes to Susan Dagnall. He does not like a star ornament placed at the beginning of the chapter on the revised Hobbit specimen. He also queries the margins as set. He encloses a paragraph describing the book as requested, and an alternative text by C.S. Lewis. See note. Lewis does not like the idea of his ‘prolegomena’ being used as a ‘cram’ text.
9 December 1936 Tolkien delivers his lecture Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics to the Manchester Medieval Society. He is delayed travelling to Manchester from Oxford; in the meantime, to entertain the audience, E.V. Gordon gives an impromptu account of the Norse settlements in Greenland.
10 December 1936 Susan Dagnall writes to Tolkien. His Hobbit maps need to be redrawn: they contain too many colours, and their shading would require reproduction by the more elaborate halftone process. Dagnall suggests that Thror’s Map and Wilderland be printed as endpapers in red and blue, or any other two colours, and that the other three maps be printed with the text in a single colour. She asks if the ‘moon-runes’ on Thror’s Map are very important, as they will be difficult to reproduce. She has told the Allen & Unwin production department