The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology

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?20 June 1915 G.B. Smith replies to a letter from Tolkien, who apparently has written to Colonel Stainforth. Tolkien is sure to get through the medical examination. Smith had an excellent time in Birmingham, during which he made enquiries on Tolkien’s behalf. He writes further about camp kit:

You will want a bed, bath-and-washstand, sleeping-bag, and at least two blankets or rugs; also a hair (not an air) or down pillow, and I rather advise a mattress (cork), and a few other things.

Thus:

Bed

Bath-and-washstand

Sleeping-bag

2 rugs

Down pillow

Mattress

Soap-box

Hooks for tent-pole

Ground-sheet (optional)

To carry these I should get:

1 good sized canvas kit-bag, of the sack shape (the others, like a cricket-bag, are nicer but dear).

1 tin box for underclothes, but don’t spend too much on it, or get too large an one, as they are allowed only within these islands. Do not get a valise, until you are obliged to. I hate them, and mine cost me the hell of a sum. Also bring a small bag or suit-case.

Add 1 steel shaving mirror (price 1/6). All else seems to me unnecessary. My table and chairs I intend to be soap-boxes bought on the spot, also I mean to bring an honest tin bucket.

Now you might get all this very cheap at the Birmingham Household Supply Assn. in Corporation Street. I should perhaps get a Jaeger sleeping-bag at Allports, if you want a nice article. Don’t forget towels and a Burberry. I think I would get everything as cheap as you can: I mean beds, etc. The B.H.S.A. did me quite well.

I think this is all I need tell you at present. Except to keep perfectly calm, and correspond with me as much as possible. By the way, make Allports get you the same buttons as they got me: they will know which they are. And do be careful not to get bright breeches or a bright British Warm. The breeches I have just ordered from them are light-weight Bedford cord, rather nice I think.

I don’t know how you are off for boots. I don’t know a good place in B[irming]ham either. I always buy shoes at Day’s, and they are good enough, but their boots feed me. I have tried Manfield but don’t think much. Maybe you know better than I do. The best pair I have had are a good pair I believe to be K5. I think unless you can find a good make these much-advertised makes are not bad. You don’t want more than 2 or at most 3 pairs, and a pair of shoes.

If you want a wrist-watch, I strongly advise Greaves. They are like Allports, of an assured reputation, and prodigious age. My grandfather went there, which always means that they are rather dear and very reliable. I got a very good 40/- silver watch: I shouldn’t pay less. You may get a gold one for £3 or so: they are very nice. But I wouldn’t worry about luminous things.

Binoculars and prismatic compasses, very dear, may be obtained, unless you decide to wait, which you may quite well do, at Lucking’s. Straight-through Lemaire glasses are supposed to be as good as binoculars, and are less expensive.

Get your Sam Browne made with D rings at the back if you can, so as to carry your mackintosh. And get a mackintosh-carrier fitted with swivels, not a sling. The shops will know what I mean, if you don’t. Get a haversack (a thin and light one) fitted with ditto, to hand on the belt, also a water-bottle; I should get these at the B.H.S.A. also, if possible. The water-bottle is not strictly essential: I’ve lost mine! The idea is you see to attach all these things to the belt when one goes on marches etc. by swivels: not to have them slung independently over the shoulders. But don’t worry if you can’t get these in B[irming]ham: just leave it, and don’t get any at all. Except of course your Sam Browne, which can be altered afterwards…. [Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford; see note]

28 June 1915 Tolkien applies for a temporary commission in the regular Army for the period of the war. He lists his service in the Oxford University Officers Training Corps since October 1914, and in the King Edward’s Horse from October 1911 to January 1913. He requests to be posted to the 19th Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, though the form makes it clear that there is no guarantee of appointment to a particular unit. – Smith, now at Brough Hall Camp, Catterick Bridge, near Richmond in Yorkshire, writes to Tolkien. Colonel Stainforth evidently has offered Tolkien a place in his battalion, and Smith urges him to write again to Stainforth, to learn if he wants Tolkien to join the unit at once or wait until gazetted (i.e. until his commission is made official by announcement in The Times). He pledges again that he will try to get Tolkien into his company, but doubts that he will succeed. Tolkien can bring a book or two and some paints with him when he enters the Army, as long as they are portable.

29 June 1915 Tolkien has his Army medical examination. He declares that he has never suffered from any serious illness or injury.

30 June 1915 Captain Whatley of the Oxford University Officers Training Corps certifies Tolkien’s Army application. Tolkien is accepted and given £50 to buy a uniform and equipment. He has to wait a few days before his commission is gazetted.

July 1915 Tolkien spends time in Warwick and visits his relatives at Moseley and Barnt Green. He probably also visits Father Francis Morgan in Birmingham. – Tolkien writes to Rob Gilson. In the event, he will not receive a reply until September.

2 July 1915 A list of candidates for the Literis Anglicis examination, Trinity Term 1915, includes ‘Tolkien, Joannes R.R.’ under Classis I (First Class). The list is signed by A.S. Napier, *C.H. Firth, D. Nichol Smith, and *H.C. Wyld. An announcement of Tolkien’s First Class Honours will appear in the Times for 3 July.

4 July 1915 Smith sends congratulations to Tolkien at 57 Emscot Road, Warwick on ‘one of the highest distinctions an Englishman can obtain’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford).

8–9 July 1915 Tolkien writes (or possibly revises) a poem, The Shores of Faery, putting into words the scene he had painted two months earlier in The Book of Ishness (see entry for 10 May). It refers to ‘the two Trees naked are / That bear Night’s silver bloom, / That bear the globed fruit of Noon’, and to Eärendel, ‘one lone star / That fled before the moon’. The ship of Earéndel (spelled thus) and the Two Trees appear, as well as significant names such as Taniquetil, Valinor, and Eglamar. Possibly around the same time, certainly not much later, Tolkien writes the poem into The Book of Ishness, on the page facing the painting, blank except for the words ‘The Shores of Faery’. Probably soon afterward he makes slight changes to the manuscript, then records the poem in emended form in a notebook of fair copies, with the date ‘July 8–9 1915’. With the latter manuscript is a prose preface in which Tolkien describes Eärendel as ‘the Wanderer who beat about the Oceans of the World’ and eventually launched his ship on ‘the Oceans of the Firmament’ but was hunted by the Moon and fled back to Valinor where he gazed at the Oceans of the World from the towers of Kôr. Tolkien will later inscribe typescripts of the poem ‘Moseley & Edgb[aston] July 1915 (walking and on bus). Retouched often since – esp[ecially] 1924’ and ‘First poem of my mythology Valinor [?thought of about] 1910’. See note.

9 July 1915 Tolkien writes a poem, The Princess Ní. He will inscribe a later typescript ‘Moseley B’ham [Birmingham] Bus between Edgb[aston]. and Moseley July 1915’. – G.B. Smith writes to Tolkien at Abbotsford, Moseley, Birmingham (the home of Tolkien’s Aunt Mabel and her husband Tom Mitton), again suggesting that he ask Stainforth what he wants him to do, and giving him more advice about equipment. The War Office will write to him when he is gazetted. He is very pleased that Tolkien got a First at Oxford. He suggests books that Tolkien should bring with him: one on oriental painting; 1914 and Other Poems by Rupert Brooke, and anything else by Brooke; Georgian Poetry; Browne’s Religio Medici and Urn Burial; Sir Philip Sidney’s Defence of Poesie; and Sir Francis Bacon’s Essays. He should get the earlier books in editions with old spelling. – The War Office writes to Tolkien c/o Father Francis Morgan at the Birmingham Oratory. Tolkien has been appointed a temporary Second Lieutenant in the New Army and has been posted to the 13th Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, a reserve training unit; but prior to joining his battalion he is to attend a class of instruction at *Bedford, and is to report to a Colonel Tobin at 20 de Parys Avenue, Bedford on 19 July between 2.00 and 4.00 p.m. He is to provide himself with bedding and to join in uniform (if ready). He should apply to his Army agents for his outfit allowance but must pay his own travelling expenses. – When he receives this letter Tolkien is very disappointed that he has not been posted to the same battalion as Smith. He writes to Smith to inform him, and also to Christopher Wiseman, telling him of his posting and that he will be visiting relatives in Moseley and Barnt Green.

11 July 1915 Tolkien drafts and probably sends a letter from Abbotsford to a Mr How at Exeter College. He has to report to Bedford on 19 July so will be unable to receive his degree on 20 July. He will be sending a cheque to cover what he owes for battels and asks what ‘caution money’ he needs to pay to keep his name on the College’s books and eventually receive an M.A. He also asks how he should authorize the transfer of the Junior Common Room bank account to the new President of the JCR when one is elected; uncertainty as to who might be in College next term or whether such an official would be needed had made it impossible for him to settle the matter before he left. – Christopher Wiseman writes to Tolkien. Having seen a notice that the Navy wants mathematicians as instructors, he is now awaiting the formal notice of his appointment from the Admiralty. He asks to see more of Tolkien’s poems.

13 July 1915 Smith writes to Tolkien at Abbotsford, Moseley, Birmingham (forwarded on 15 July to Tolkien at the Incledons, Barnt Green). He advises Tolkien to write to the Colonel of the 13th Battalion, and to Colonel Stainforth of the 19th, asking if his posting to the 13th is a mistake.

c. 13–14 July 1915 Wiseman writes to Tolkien. Wiseman and his mother will be staying in Bromsgrove for about a week; he and Tolkien must spend some time together, and his mother insists that Tolkien and Edith join them for tea at Barrow’s Stores, possibly on 15 July. He asks if Tolkien can shorten his visit to Moseley and go to Barnt Green earlier, so that they can go walking for a day. He will ring Tolkien the next evening. (There is no evidence that Tolkien and Wiseman were able to meet as Wiseman suggests, though it would have been possible before Tolkien had to leave for Bedford on 19 July.)

13–14 July 1915 Now at Barnt Green, Tolkien writes a poem, The Trumpets of Faery (later The Trumpets of Faerie), describing a procession of Elves winding its way through woods. He probably also begins to work on the first version of another poem, *The Happy Mariners, using in part the verso of his draft letter to Mr How written on 11 July.

16 July 1915 The War Office issues Tolkien’s commission as a temporary second lieutenant in the Infantry. See note.

17 July 1915 Tolkien’s commission is announced in the Times’ ‘London Gazette’ column.

18 July 1915 G.B. Smith, who has heard nothing further from Tolkien, writes to him at Abbotsford, Moseley, to cheer him up.

19 July 1915 Tolkien begins Army training at Bedford. He is billeted in a house with other trainee officers. – R.W. Reynolds writes to Tolkien. He comments on poems Tolkien has sent him: You & Me and the Cottage of Lost Play, The Shores of Faery, Kôr: In a City Lost and Dead, and The Princess Nî are mentioned. He finds in them echoes of Icelandic sagas, William Morris, Rudyard Kipling, and Walter de la Mare. – Probably after he begins training at Bedford, Tolkien writes a poem, Thoughts on Parade.

?23 July 1915 Smith writes to Tolkien, probably in reply to a letter. Tolkien can still try to get a transfer after his training, if both commanding officers agree.

24 July 1915 Tolkien completes the first version of his poem The Happy Mariners, which he dates to 24 July. He will inscribe a later version ‘Barnt Green July 1915 and Bedford and later’, which suggests that he began the poem when he was at Barnt Green earlier in July and continued to work on it after reporting for duty at Bedford. Elements and imagery of The Happy Mariners, such as the white tower in the Twilit Isles that ‘glimmers like a spike of lonely pearl’ and ‘Night’s dragon-headed doors’ (Stapeldon Magazine, June 1920), will come to figure in Tolkien’s mythology.

26 July 1915 Wiseman writes to Tolkien, in reply to a card. He suggests that Tolkien and Edith visit the Wisemans in London on some weekend after about 14 August.

August 1915 While still at Bedford Tolkien revises his poem The Trumpets of Faery. – After his initial instruction he joins the rest of the 13th Battalion in Lichfield, *Staffordshire. He apparently is billeted in an encampment outside the city. He does not feel much affinity with his fellow officers, or share their taste for ragtime music; nor does he enjoy the constant drilling and lectures. He will later write of ‘these grey days wasted in wearily going over, over and over again, the dreary topics, the dull backwaters of the art of killing’ (quoted in Biography, p. 78). He spends some time reading Old Icelandic so as not to forget his studies. He will recall being in a dirty wet marquee ‘crowded with (mostly) depressed and wet creatures … listening to somebody lecturing on map-reading, or camp-hygiene, or the art of sticking a fellow through … [when] the man next to me said suddenly in a dreamy voice: “Yes, I think I shall express the accusative case by a prefix!”’ (*A Secret Vice, in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, p. 199) – someone else interested in inventing languages. – At some point during his training Tolkien specializes in signalling. By the beginning of 1916 he will study various ways of transmitting messages by flag, heliograph, and lamp, using codes such as Morse code. Also he has to learn how to use signal-rockets and field-telephones, and carrier-pigeons. One of the books he uses in his studies is Signalling: Morse, Semaphore, Station Work, Despatch Riding, Telephone Cables, Map Reading, ed. E.J. Solano (1915).

2 August 1915 R.W. Reynolds writes to thank Tolkien for sending him another poem (possibly The Happy Mariners). In response to a request from Tolkien he sends advice about publishing a book of poems. In normal times, Reynolds would have advised Tolkien to first publish single poems in magazines, to establish his name; but as ‘the odds are against your being able to have the leisure for some time to come to go bombarding editors and publishing verses’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford), Tolkien should go ahead with his book, though he should not be disappointed if it fails. Fairy poems, Reynolds thinks, are Tolkien’s strong suit. He is not altogether happy with a title Tolkien has proposed for his book. – Tolkien has also consulted Smith on this point, who (in an undated letter) thinks it worthwhile for Tolkien to publish his poems.

4 August 1915 Tolkien rewrites his poem Thoughts on Parade, now called The Swallow and the Traveller on the Plains.

?Mid–late August 1915 Christopher Wiseman urges Tolkien and Edith to spend one of the next two weekends at the Wiseman home in London. He will try to get Smith to come as well. (There is no evidence that the visit occurred.)

9 September 1915 Tolkien rewrites The Happy Mariners, now linked explicitly with Eärendel.

12 September 1915 Tolkien writes a poem, *A Song of Aryador, while at Whittington Heath camp near Lichfield. Later, in The Book of Lost Tales, it will be said that when Men entered Hisilómë which they called Aryador, some of the Elves who were lost on the march to Valinor still dwelt there and were feared by Men who called them the Shadow Folk.

13 September 1915 After a long silence Rob Gilson, temporarily in the 3rd Durham Temporary Hospital, Sunderland, writes to Tolkien at Exeter College, forwarded to Whittington Heath. He is annoyed that he has not taken up Tolkien’s invitation to criticize his poems, as he feels that one of the best things the T.C.B.S. can do at present is to help its members with their creative work.

14 September 1915 At Whittington Heath, Tolkien writes a poem, Dark Are the Clouds about the North.

17 September 1915 Gilson writes from the 3rd Durham Temporary Hospital, Sunderland, to Tolkien at Whittington Heath. He has received a number of T.C.B.S. letters in the past few days, including one from Tolkien enclosing some of his poems. Gilson is about to be released from hospital and will have a week of sick leave at Marston Green; if Tolkien cannot visit him there, Gilson will travel to Lichfield.

19 September 1915 R.W. Reynolds writes to Tolkien at Whittington Heath and thanks him for sending his poems. He likes all of them, though he makes some criticisms. He wonders if Tolkien has thought of a new title for his book.

Autumn 1915 Tolkien and a fellow officer buy a motor cycle. Tolkien will use it to visit Edith and friends when he has leave.

21 September 1915 Gilson writes from Marston Green to Tolkien at Whittington Heath. He has sent telegrams to Wiseman and Smith asking them to come to Lichfield on Saturday (25 September) if possible.

23 September 1915 Wiseman, now at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, writes to Tolkien at Whittington Heath. He intends to be present at the ‘Council of Lichfield’ on 25–26 September. – Gilson, who has heard from Smith, writes to Tolkien that all four T.C.B.S. members can be in Lichfield on 25 September, and asks if Tolkien can find three beds there for the night. He suggests that they have lunch the following day at the Gilsons’ home at Marston Green and a quiet afternoon in the garden.

24 September 1915 Gilson informs Tolkien by telegram that he and Smith will arrive in Lichfield at 10.34 am on the 25th and make the George Hotel their headquarters.

25 September 1915 At 11.00 a.m. Gilson and Smith write to Tolkien from the George Hotel, Lichfield. They hope to meet him at the hotel when they return from sightseeing just before 1.00 p.m., if not sooner. – O.O. Staples, B.J. Tolhurst, and M.W.M. Windle of Exeter College are killed in action in the Battle of Loos.

25–26 September 1915 The T.C.B.S. ‘Council of Lichfield’. This is the last time that Tolkien, Gilson, Smith, and Wiseman meet together before being separated by war, and apparently the last time that Tolkien sees Gilson.

5 October 1915 Gilson, now with his battalion at No. 2 Camp, Sutton Veny, writes to Tolkien. He and Smith have decided that Tolkien should send his book of poems to the publisher Sidgwick & Jackson. Tolkien should not forget the proposed ‘Council of Bath’, and should try to keep both 16 and 23 October as possible dates.

6 October 1915 Smith writes to Tolkien from the York House Hotel, Bath. Smith and Gilson are making a preliminary excursion to Bath and have practically engaged inexpensive rooms in the South Parade for a T.C.B.S. ‘council’ on 23 October.

9 October 1915 Smith writes to Tolkien that he is sorry he has not had time to reply to Tolkien’s impressive postcard. He recommends that Tolkien send his poems to the publisher Hodder and Stoughton, or to Sidgwick & Jackson, and asks for copies of Tolkien’s later poems so that he can show them to H.T. Wade-Gery.

19 October 1915 Smith, now at No. 6 Camp, Codford St Mary, Wiltshire, writes to Tolkien. Tolkien should let him know as soon as possible if he is coming to Bath, and inform Gilson by telegram so that he can book rooms. – Gilson writes from No. 3 Camp, Sutton Veny, to Tolkien at Brocton Camp, *Staffordshire, forwarded to him at Penkridge, Rugeley (i.e. Rugeley Camp on Cannock Chase). See note. Gilson is likely to be sent to the front very soon, and if at all possible would like the T.C.B.S. to meet the next weekend.

24 October 1915 Smith writes to Tolkien at Whittington Heath from the Wisemans’ house in London. He has heard from Tolkien that he cannot join them for the weekend. Tolkien seems to have been depressed about various matters, one of which is that Edith is ill. Smith thanks Tolkien for sending more poems and is particularly impressed with The Happy Mariners and Dark Are the Clouds about the North. Smith and Gilson have not gone to Bath, but on impulse have joined Wiseman in London. There they have reaffirmed the principles of the T.C.B.S. and have decided ‘once again on the work it will have to do after the war is over: to drive from life, letters, the stage and society that dabbling in and hankering after the unpleasant sides and incidents in life and nature which have captured the larger and worser tastes in Oxford, London and the world: … to reestablish sanity, cleanliness, and the love of real and true beauty in everybody’s breast’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford).

27 October 1915 Wiseman writes to Tolkien, giving an account of the previous weekend.

31 October 1915 Gilson writes to Tolkien at Whittington Heath, giving his account of the weekend 23–24 October. He was very sorry that Tolkien could not come; he feels that the T.C.B.S. is not complete unless all four are present.

November 1915 Tolkien moves with the 13th Battalion to Rugeley Camp in Staffordshire. – G.B. Smith goes to France with the 19th Lancashire Fusiliers.

November 1915–early 1916 While stationed at Cannock Chase Tolkien takes the opportunity to visit Phoenix Farm, Gedling. Colin Brookes-Smith will later recall that Tolkien arrived on an AJS motor cycle, and one morning allowed Colin to ride it up the road and back. Probably during this period Tolkien also participates in the cutting up of a poached deer, an event to which he will later refer during lectures on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at Oxford. See note.

?21–28 November 1915 Tolkien writes a poem, Kortirion among the Trees (*The Trees of Kortirion); one of its earliest copies will be inscribed ‘dedicated to Warwick’. A fair copy will be dated ‘Nov. 21–28’, and a later typescript inscribed ‘Warwick, a week’s leave from camp – written largely in a house in Victoria Street [where Edith and Jennie Grove live] and in [mine?] in Northgate St.’ In fact Tolkien is in camp on 25 and 26 November, from which he writes on each date to Edith (see below), and in the second letter says that he has ‘written out a pencil copy of “Kortirion”’ (Letters, p. 8). This suggests that Edith knows about the work already, that Tolkien may have begun the poem during a visit to Warwick and continued to work on it when he returned to camp, and that after writing out the pencil copy on 26 November he made further alterations (27–28 November) before making the dated fair copy. – To a fair copy of the poem Tolkien will append a prose introduction which explains that Kortirion was a city of the fairies (later Elves) in the Lonely Isle ‘after the great wars with Melko and the ruin of Gondolin’, built ‘in memory of their ancient dwelling of Kôr in Valinor’ (The Book of Lost Tales, Part One, p. 25). It is clear that he intends Warwick to be the site where earlier had stood Kortirion, whose memory still lingers, and his mythology to be particularly connected with England (the ‘Lonely Isle’). Although the date of this prose introduction is uncertain, its sentimental yet hopeful tone, so like that of the poem, suggests that both were written at roughly the same time. If that is so, several very notable elements have been added by Tolkien to his rapidly growing mythology. On one early copy he gives the poem a subsidiary (but not entirely legible) title in Qenya, Narqelion la . . tu y aldalin Kortirionwen, ‘Autumn (among) the Trees of Kortirion’. On one of the surviving working sheets he drafts four lines of a poem in Qenya on a similar theme (*Narqelion). By now, Tolkien has developed his invented language to the extent that he is able to use it in composition.

21 November 1915 Gilson writes to Tolkien that the last he has heard from him is a letter Smith showed him in London. He hopes that Tolkien is no longer depressed and that Edith is now better. – Hilary Tolkien lands in Boulogne with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.

25 November 1915 Tolkien writes to Edith from Rugeley Camp.

26 November 1915 Tolkien writes to Edith from Rugeley Camp, giving an account of his day:

The usual kind of morning standing about and freezing and then trotting to get warmer so as to freeze again. We ended up by an hour’s bomb-throwing with dummies. Lunch and a freezing afternoon. All the hot days of summer we doubled about at full speed and perspiration, and now we stand in icy groups being talked at! Tea and another scramble − I fought for a place at the stove and made a piece of toast on the end of a knife: what days! [Letters, p. 8]

He has written out a pencil copy of Kortirion among the Trees; he first intends to send it to the T.C.B.S. as he owes them all letters, then decides that he will send it to Edith and make another copy for the T.C.B.S.

28 November–4 December 1915 Tolkien writes a poem, The Pool of the Dead Year (and the Passing of Autumn).

December 1915 Tolkien moves with the 13th Battalion to Brocton Camp on Cannock Chase.

1 December 1915 Tolkien’s poem Goblin Feet is published in Oxford Poetry 1915. The volume also includes ‘Songs on the Downs’ by G.B. Smith and three poems by H.T. Wade-Gery.

2 December 1915 Smith, now in the trenches in France, writes to Tolkien in care of the 13th Lancashire Fusiliers, 3rd Reserve Brigade, Officers Company, Brocton Camp. He asks for the long letter Tolkien promised in his last postcard that he would send.

20 December 1915–9 January 1916 British and allied troops evacuate Gallipoli.

22 December 1915 Smith writes to Tolkien, thanking him for various letters and commenting on Oxford Poetry 1915 and Goblin Feet. Smith and Wade-Gery agree that they and Tolkien are the best contributors to the volume.

26 December 1915 Gilson writes to Tolkien in care of the 3rd Reserve Brigade, Officers Company, P Lines, Brocton Camp. Tolkien has written to him about some problems, as Gilson remarks on ‘the extra blackness of your fate in these dark days’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). He has just forwarded Kortirion among the Trees to Wiseman, and has made a copy for Smith. He likes the poem very much though he makes one or two criticisms.

30 December 1915 Wiseman writes to Tolkien at Brocton Camp. He has been posted to the HMS Superb. He has received Kortirion among the Trees from Gilson, and will write about it later.