Testing times unearthed for ‘Hobbit’ author Tolkien

From independent.ie: PRE-exam nerves are bad enough, but if your examiner is JRR Tolkien, then you’d really have your work cut out.

Well that was the case for students at NUI Galway more than 60 years ago when ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ author worked as an English literature examiner.

Recently discovered exam papers reveal that the creative genius was an external examiner for the summer exams over a number of years at the Galway university.

Barry Houlihan, an archivist at the James Hardiman Library in the university, said the find came about thanks to a Tolkien enthusiast who contacted the college.

“We decided to have a search and we found the volume in question. We went through all the exam papers and we found that Tolkien had been an external on four occasions. It was fascinating to see his name printed on them,” said Mr Houlihan. [Read More]