Which university did J.R.R. Tolkien teach at from 1925 to 1959?

J.R.R. Tolkien taught at the University of Oxford from 1925 to 1959.

Tolkien became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford in 1925. In 1945 he moved to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, a position he held until his retirement in 1959. His academic work focused on languages and medieval literature, especially Old English and Middle English.

Oxford was also the setting for important friendships and intellectual associations. Tolkien belonged to the informal literary group known as the Inklings, whose members included C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams. Meetings and conversations with fellow writers helped create a supportive environment for discussing imaginative fiction and Christian themes.

Tolkien’s academic career is sometimes reduced to the claim that he was simply a novelist. In fact, his professional scholarship strongly influenced his fiction. His knowledge of philology, myth, and medieval texts shaped the sound, history, and structure of the languages and cultures in Middle-earth.