MIDDLE-EARTH TIMELINE
In 1931 Tolkien gave a talk about his secret hobby: inventing languages. Known as A Secret Vice, the lecture describes the pleasure of making up words and sounds, and includes poems in his own Elvish. It had appeared in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays.
This critical edition by Dimitra Fimi and Andrew Higgins gives the full text along with previously unpublished notes and drafts, including Tolkien's Essay on Phonetic Symbolism. The editors also show when and where the talk was given and why language was at the heart of his creative work. HarperCollins published it in 2016.
Tolkien's lecture on the art of inventing languages, published with his notes, drafts and an essay on the sounds of words.