Two J.R.R Tolkien Poems Discovered in Abingdon School

A school in Abingdon Oxfordshire has made a rather wonderful discovery, two poems written by Lord of the Rings author J.R.R Tolkien.

The poems came to light after American Tolkien expert, Wayne G Hammond made contact with school regarding some notes that mentioned two poems that had been written for the school’s magazine, the Abingdon Chronicle.

Tolkien apparently wrote them after becoming acquainted with the school, then run by The Sisters of Mercy whilst he was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University.

Initially the school was unable to find the magazine that Tolkien’s notes referred to and had directed Hammond to the Sisters of Mercy archives in London as the only likely source of any remaining copies of the 1936 magazine but in a curious twist of fate a copy was found when the school was preparing for a totally unrelated occasion.

The poetry included in the magazine were Noel a Christmas poem and an earlier version of The Shadow Man which was published in 1962 as part of Tolkien’s Adventures of Tom Bombadil.
The 1936 date of the magazine is a year prior to Tolkien’s The Hobbit making these poems his first published works of fiction.

The school now plans to display the magazine at a future exhibition.