Silmarillion and laid the groundwork for his stores about Middle-earth. Tolkien returned to Oxford, where he joined the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary and began work as a self-employed tutor. In 1920 he was appointed Reader in English Language at Leeds University, where he collaborated with E. V Gordon on an highly praised translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, published in 1925. The following year Tolkien returned to Oxford and became friends with C.S. Lewis. They both attended meetings of The Coalbiters, a club founded by Tolkien, where Icelandic sagas were read aloud(Byers 259). Almost all of Tolkiens work was never published. But in 1936 he was persuaded by friends to let the firm of Allen an Unwin to take a look at his typescript of The Hobbit. This story was said to delight all who read. Allen an Unwin decided to publish the book and it sold so well that they asked Tolkien to write a sequel. Tolkien wanted to, but it took him fifteen years to complete it(Kroeber 520).After thirty years of being a professor Tolkien finally began being recognized and rewarded for his academic achievements. In 1945 he was named an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University college in Dublin, Ireland and the University of Liege in Belgium. It wasnt until the 1950s that Tolkien started to be known out side his own field. In 1953 he was invited to give the William Paton Ker Memorial Lecture at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Tolkien was also given a honorary membership in the Hid Islezhe bokmennta felag, an Icelandic society. All of his honors came so late in life because he hardly published anything. But it is said that it is good that he became recognized as a scholar first and not a writer(Grotta 123-124).Tolkiens wrote his first story at the age of seven. But it was not till after the First World War that he began writing seriously. What he wrote in the 1920s and into the 1930s was basically The Silmarillion, accompanied by...
