I bought this book for one paragraph and a footnote - and here's the reason why

The Letters of G.S. Gordon, 1902-1942 may not sound terribly familiar to you. However, when I mention to you that he was educated at Oriel College, Oxford (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), where he received a First Class in Classical Moderations (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in 1904, and was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), from 1907 to 1915, this might ring a bell.

He was Merton Professor (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of English Literature from 1922 to 1928 - not to be confused with the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, a position Tolkien held from 1945 - 1959 - but you do get the idea that he was a leading academic whose lifetime coincided with Tolkien's.