History Commons^™

Tolkien And The Zeppelins, Seamus Hamill-Keays

Journal of Tolkien Research

To devotees of Tolkien, the trench fever that led to his repatriation from the Western Front in November 1916, was a fortuitous circumstance that saved an extraordinary intellect from annihilation in the mud and blood of French or Belgian fields. His return is widely seen as an escape to the peace and quiet of treatment and convalescence in England. Yet his posting to Holderness, in April 1917, placed him in the alarms and excursions of another front line.

This article examines the background to Tolkien’s military duties in the East Riding of Yorkshire from April 1917. The night bombing raids …

Tolkien's Work On The Oxford English Dictionary: Some New Evidence From Quotation Slips, Rachel A. Fletcher

Journal of Tolkien Research

This article presents previously undiscussed material, in the form of citation slips, relating to Tolkien’s work on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The separation of these slips from the OED archives means that they have been almost entirely overlooked, and their relevance to Tolkien studies has not been recognised. Nevertheless, they have the potential to be a valuable resource, especially for understanding the specialist skills Tolkien brought to the dictionary as a scholar of Old English. One item is of particular biographical interest, as it suggests that Tolkien was carrying out work for the OED earlier than previously …

‘Written In A Fair Hand’: The Living Tradition Of Medieval Scripts In J.R.R. Tolkien’S Calligraphy, Eduardo B. Kumamoto

Journal of Tolkien Research

This paper examines J.R.R. Tolkien’s calligraphic work in the light of the medieval scripts that possibly or certainly inspired him, aiming to demonstrate how his art was informed by the philological and paleographical dimensions. At first, we explore the context in which Tolkien’s calligraphic skills flourished. After that, the influence of the Anglo-Saxon Square Minuscule, the Insular Half-uncial, and the Uncial scripts is investigated by means of examples taken from Tolkien’s illustrations and manuscripts. The impact of the English Carolingian Minuscule, via Edward Johnston’s Foundational Hand, is also discussed. In the last section, the lettering in the maps prepared for …