What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s first academic publication?

The Devil’s Coach Horses was J.R.R. Tolkien’s first academic publication. It appeared in 1925 in the journal The Review of English Studies and examined the phrase “devil’s coach-horses” in relation to Old English vocabulary and folklore.

The article reflects Tolkien’s early scholarly interest in how words preserve cultural history. His academic writing often combined close linguistic analysis with attention to the stories, beliefs, and historical associations behind words.

Tolkien’s later scholarship became more widely known through works such as A Middle English Vocabulary, co-written with E.V. Gordon, and the influential lecture later published as Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.

The Devil’s Coach Horses is easy to confuse with Tolkien’s better-known publications. It was a short scholarly article, not a novel, and it predates both The Hobbit and his most famous Beowulf lecture.