What was the name of J.R.R. Tolkien’s first academic book, published in 1922?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s first academic book, published in 1922, was A Middle English Vocabulary.

A Middle English Vocabulary was published in 1922. Tolkien prepared it while working in the academic world, drawing on the language of texts from the Middle English period. The book reflects his training in philology, the historical study of languages and their development.

The volume was designed as a practical aid for students reading Middle English, rather than as a work of imaginative literature. It belongs to the scholarly part of Tolkien’s career, which included teaching, editing medieval texts, and writing linguistic studies.

The title is sometimes confused with Tolkien’s later works or with books published after his death. The History of Middle-earth, for example, is a modern editorial series assembled by Christopher Tolkien, not a book written by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1922. A Middle English Vocabulary demonstrates that Tolkien was already publishing specialized research long before The Hobbit appeared in 1937.