Shippey's first printed essay, "Creation from Philology in "The Lord of the Rings"", expanded on his 1970 lecture. In 1979, he was elected into a former position of Tolkien's, the Chair of English Language and Medieval English Literature at Leeds University. His first book, "The Road to Middle-earth", was published in 1982. At this time, Shippey shifted from regarding Tolkien as a philologist to a "traumatised author" as he called it. This would include writers affected by war like Vonnegut and Golding. An enlarged third edition was published in 2005; in its preface he states that he assumed that the 1982 book would be his last word on the subject.