Which Oxford university was J.R.R. Tolkien a professor at?

J.R.R. Tolkien was a professor at the University of Oxford.

He held academic posts at Oxford for most of his career. He was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature from 1945 until his retirement in 1959.

Oxford provided the setting for Tolkien’s professional scholarship and many of his friendships. He was a member of the informal literary group known as the Inklings, which included C.S. Lewis. The group met regularly at Oxford pubs and college rooms to discuss works in progress and literature.

Tolkien’s academic expertise in Old and Middle English, Germanic languages, and medieval literature strongly influenced his fiction. His best-known books were not simply invented stories; they drew on philology, historical language change, epic poetry, and northern European myth.