E. V. Gordon
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Eric Valentine Gordon (1896 – 1938) was a philologist who studied at Oxford University (1920) and taught at Leeds University (1922-1931) and Manchester University (1932-1938). He compiled many Germanic texts in their original language into book format. One of his prime works, published first in 1927 and then frequently reprinted over the years, was "An Introduction to Old Norse." Gordon worked with J. R. R. Tolkien several times on various scholastic works and published books, including A Middle English Vocabulary and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, while Tolkien was teaching at Leeds University.
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[edit] The Viking Club and other things
Gordon also began the Viking Club with J. R. R. Tolkien. In this club they would read Old Icelandic sagas (and drink beer) with students and faculty, and invent original Anglo-Saxon songs. A collection of these was privately published as the book Songs for the Philologists. Most of the printed editions were destroyed in a fire and only 14 or so books are said to exist.
In 1938 Gordon had joined George Leslie Brook (1910-1987) for an edition of Layamon's Brut for the Early English Text Society, but Gordon died that year.
[edit] Bibliography
- 1922 A Middle English Vocabulary
- 1925 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, co-edited with J.R.R. Tolkien, Oxford University Press, 211 pp.; Revised edition 1967, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 232 pp.
- 1927 An Introduction to Old Norse, Revised edition 1956, revised by A.R. Taylor; Reprinted 1981, Oxford University Press, USA; 2nd edition
- 1936 Songs for the Philologists, with J.R.R. Tolkien et al.
- 1937 Battle of Maldon
- 1953 Pearl
