Tolkien on Chaucer, 1913-1959

Tolkien on Chaucer, 1913-59 traces J. R. R. Tolkien's critical engagements with Geoffrey Chaucer from his undergraduate Oxford essays in 1913 to remarks in his retirement lecture in 1959. Reprinted with both Tolkien's own annotations and new notes from the authors, this book analyses his major articles such as ^"Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale", as well as his unpublished edition of the Reeve's Tale and his lectures on the Clerk's Tale and the Pardoner's Tale. Though his scholarship was best known for his work on Beowulf, Tolkien was also an expert on Geoffrey Chaucer. He lectured on Chaucer, edited Chaucer, and published essays on Chaucer. Tolkien on Chaucer, 1913-59 reprints many of these works for the first time, and documents Tolkien's career-long engagement with the poet and traces his influence in Tolkien's own works. Bowers and Steffensen reveal how the Reeve's Tale was a source for Tolkien's description of Merry and Pippin's battle with Saruman, and how the Pardoner's Tale influenced Tolkien's own story of men fighting to the death over a gold treasure. Chaucer emerges as a major source of inspiration for Tolkien's creative writings and profoundly formative in the creation of The Lord of the Rings.

John M. Bowers, Professor of English, University of Nevada,Peter Steffensen, Instructor of English, Bishop Gorman High School

John M. Bowers has published some twenty Chaucerian articles, and his books include Chaucer and Langland: The Antagonistic Tradition (2007) and, with Oxford University Press, Tolkien's Lost Chaucer (2019). He was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, Tolkien's Oxford college, and his work has been supported by NEH and Guggenheim Fellowships. He has also published a lecture series for Great Courses on The Western Literary Canon in Context.


Peter Steffensen received his BA and MA in English from Georgia State University and his PhD from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He specializes in Middle English Literature and currently teaches English at Bishop Gorman High School.

Introduction1. Chaucerian in Training, 1913-232. Editing Chaucer, 1924-283. The Reeve's Tale, 1928-444. Merton Professor of Chaucer, 1947-575. Middle English Losenger6. The Pardoner's Tale: The Story and Its Form, 1955-567. Valedictory to Chaucer, 1959Coda: Tolkien on Chaucer's Retracciouns