J.R.R. Tolkien almost became a British spy

It's been pointed out to me that Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull had actually documented this brief episode of Tolkien's career in one of their books.

It's amazing how much news J.R.R. Tolkien has provided this year, given that he passed away 36 years ago in 1973.

The internationally celebrated author of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, The Children of Hurin, and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun apparently was recruited by Great Britain's intelligence community as part of a cadre of linguistic specialists in the months running up to the second world war.

Although Tolkien ultimately declined to participate in the government's secret program, he nonetheless spent several days in a preliminary function. According to The Telegraph, Tolkien declined to accept the 500-pound annual stipend.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Tolkien, one of his generation's most respected linguists, was ''earmarked'' to crack Nazi codes in the event that Germany declared war.

Intelligence chiefs singled him and a 'cadre' of other intellectuals to work at Bletchley Park, the codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire.

Its staff - which included Alan Turing, the gay codebreaker - would later decipher the 'impenetrable' Enigma machines.

This saved Britain from German conquest by allowing the Navy to intercept and destroy Hitler's U-Boats.

According to previously unseen records, Tolkien trained with the top-secret Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS).

He spent three days at their London HQ in March 1939 - six months before the outbreak of the Second World War and just 18 months after the publication of his first book, The Hobbit.

But although he was ''keen'', Tolkien - a professor of English literature at Oxford University - declined a £500-a-year offer to become a full-time recruit.

We have started a discussion at SF-Fandom's Tolkien Forum.

I must say, this is the most interesting news about JRRT I've read in a very long time. I'm pumped, although I don't quite know what to make of it.

Tolkien did spend some time acting as an air-raid warden during the Second World War, and he served in the British Army during the First World War.

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Hobbit News newsletter launches

If you're a Tolkien fan you must have noticed by now that two new books by J.R.R. Tolkien were published last year: The Children of Hurin and Tales From The Perilous Realm. Both books were, of course, just repackaging older content that had been published previously. But we also saw the publication of The History of The Hobbit, edited by John Rateliff.

And in May this year we'll finally see some previously unpublished Tolkien material with the release of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. And there is a lot more stuff going on, what with the upcoming Guillermo del Toro "Hobbit" movies and all.

So a new weekly Hobbit News newsletter has been launched through Yahoo! Groups. You can read the first issue of Hobbit News online. Keep your eye on it. And feel free to subscribe (registration is free and unmoderated, but you do have to sign up with Yahoo! to get the newsletter by email).

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.