Which 1925 edition did J.R.R. Tolkien co-edit with E.V. Gordon?

J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon co-edited the 1925 scholarly edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The Middle English poem tells of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur’s court, who accepts a beheading-game challenge from the mysterious Green Knight. Its language, alliteration, symbolism, and moral testing made it an important subject for Tolkien’s scholarship.

The 1925 edition was a major academic contribution and helped establish Tolkien’s reputation as a medievalist. His later translation of the poem, published after his death in a volume with Pearl and Sir Orfeo, made the work accessible to a broader modern readership.

The poem also illuminates Tolkien’s creative interests: heroic vows, perilous journeys, strange supernatural figures, and the tension between courage and human limitation recur throughout his fiction. However, Sir Gawain is a medieval literary work, not a Tolkien composition.