MIDDLE-EARTH TIMELINE
A Middle English Vocabulary is the first book J.R.R. Tolkien ever published, and it is not a story but a glossary. He compiled it for students reading Kenneth Sisam's anthology Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose, listing the Middle English words found in its texts with their meanings and origins.
The Clarendon Press in Oxford published it in May 1922. Tolkien had just worked on the Oxford English Dictionary, and the book shows the philologist behind the storyteller. It was later bound together with Sisam's anthology, where it can still be found today.
Tolkien's very first book: a glossary of Middle English words written for students of Kenneth Sisam's anthology of fourteenth century texts.