Read The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien Online
Authors: Humphrey Carpenter
Could you possibly tell me what amount of pages, beyond those absorbed by the two texts, I can be allowed? I can then tailor my trimmings.
15 December 1965
[Concerning preparations for a British paperback edition of
The Hobbit
.]
The U[nwin Books] cover [of
The Hobbit
]. I do not recollect when the rough sketch of the Death of Smaug
1
was made; but I think it must have
been before the first publication, and 1936 must be near the mark. I am in your hands, but I am still not very happy about the use of this scrawl as a cover. It seems too much in the modern mode in which those who can draw try to conceal it. But perhaps there is a distinction between their productions and one by a man who obviously cannot draw what he sees.
The Blurbs. I wrote in haste on the proposed âblurb' for U[nwin] Books. I do not wish to hurt the feelings of a writer who obviously meant well by me and the book; but I hope you will agree, if you have time to consider it, that this will not do. Apart from its unfortunate style, it misrepresents the story, and the way in which it is presented. Unless you wish to defeat the âmagic', you should NEVER talk like this within the covers of a marvellous tale. The Hobbit saga is presented as
vera historia
, at great pains (which have proved very effective). In that frame the question âAre you a hobbit?' can only be answered âNo' or âYes', according to one's birth. Nobody is a âhobbit' because he likes a quiet life and abundant food; still less because he has a latent desire for adventure. Hobbits were a breed of which the chief physical mark was their stature; and the chief characteristic of their temper was the almost total eradication of any dormant âspark', only about one per mil had any trace of it. Bilbo was specially selected by the authority and insight of Gandalf as
abnormal:
he had a good share of hobbit virtues: shrewd sense, generosity, patience and fortitude, and also a strong âspark' yet unkindled. The story and its sequel are not about âtypes' or the cure of bourgeois smugness by wider experience, but about the achievements of specially graced and gifted individuals. I would say, if saying such things did not spoil what it tries to make explicit, âby ordained individuals, inspired and guided by an Emissary to ends beyond their individual education and enlargement'. This is clear in
The Lord of the Rings;
but it is present, if veiled, in
The Hobbit
from the beginning, and is alluded to in Gandalf's last words.
2
I do not mean, of course, that anything of this sort should appear in a blurb. Heaven forbid! But I do think that it should not contain words that cannot be reconciled with it and entirely miss the point. . . . .
Very Best Wishes for Christmas and the New Year. Do you think you could mark the New Year by dropping the
Professor
? I belong to a generation which did not use Christian names outside the family, but like the dwarves kept them private, and for even their intimates used surnames (or perversions of them), or nicknames, or (occasionally) Christian names that did not belong to them. Even C. S. Lewis never called me by a Christian name (or I him). So I will be content with a surname. I wish I could be rid of the âprofessor' altogether, at any rate when not writing technical matter. It gives a false impression of
âlearning', especially in âfolklore' and all that. It also gives a probably truer impression of pedantry; but it is a pity to have my pedantry advertised and underlined, so that people sniff it even when it is not there.
18 December 1965
[Professor Kilby, of Wheaton College, Illinois, had met Tolkien while visiting Oxford in 1964. He now offered to return to England and help Tolkien in any way that might be useful, so as to make it easier for him to finish
The Silmarillion
.]
I have never had much confidence in my own work, and even now when I am assured (still much to my grateful surprise) that it has value for other people, I feel diffident, reluctant as it were to expose my world of imagination to possibly contemptuous eyes and ears. But for the encouragement of C.S.L. I do not think that I should ever have completed or offered for publication
The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion
is quite different, and if good at all, good in quite another way; & I do not really know what to make of it. It began in hospital and sick-leave (1916â1917) and has been with me ever since, and is now in a confused state having been altered, enlarged, and worked at, at intervals between then and now. If I had the assistance of a scholar at once sympathetic and yet critical, such as yourself, I feel I might make some of it publishable. It needs the actual presence of a friend and adviser at one's side, which is just what you offer. As far as I can see, I shall be free soon to return to it, and June, July and August are available.
[A reply to a letter from a reader.]
7 January 1966
76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford
Dear Mr Indick,
Thank you very much for your long and interesting letter and comments. They deserve a much fuller answer, but I hope you will forgive me since I am much pressed. Indeed, if I am ever to produce any more of the stories which you ask for, that can only be done by failing to answer letters.
Yours gratefully
J. R. R. Tolkien.
[Auden told Tolkien that he had agreed to write a short book about him, in collaboration with Peter H. Salus, for a seres entitled
Christian Perspectives;
he hoped this did not meet with Tolkien's disapproval. He also mentioned that he and Salus had attended a meeting of the New York Tolkien Society. The meeting, on 27 December 1965, was reported in the
New Yorker
on 15 January 1966, and a quotation from this report was published in the London
Daily Telegraph
, the newspaper that Tolkien read every morning, on 20 January. According to the
Telegraph
, Auden had told the Society: âHe [Tolkien] lives in a hideous house â I can't tell you how awful it is â with hideous pictures on the walls.']
23 February 1966
76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford
Dear Wystan,
I should have replied to your letter of December 28 weeks ago. Nothing is more boring than long explanation of one's neglects, so I will merely say that I have been since Christmas taxed beyond my capacity; and I was also ill (my wife and I were advance victims of the 'flu epidemic here) during the latter half of January.
I regret very much to hear that you have contracted to write a book about me. It does meet with my strong disapproval. I regard such things as premature impertinences; and unless undertaken by an intimate friend, or with consultation of the subject (for which I have at present no time), I cannot believe that they have a usefulness to justify the distaste and irritation given to the victim. I wish at any rate that any book could wait until I produce the
Silmarillion.
I am constantly interrupted in this â but nothing interferes more than the present pother about âme' and my history.
I was interested to have your note on your visit to the New York Tolkien Society. I have received some other reports of it (including brief extracts in the London press). I cannot say that the (I imagine garbled) notices of your remarks or of Salus' gave me much pleasure.
May I intrude into this letter a note on Ace Books, since I have engaged to inform âmy correspondents' of the situation. They in the event sent me a courteous letter, and I signed an âamicable agreement' with them to accept their voluntary offer under no legal obligation: to pay a royalty of 4 per cent. on all copies of their edition sold, and not to reprint it when it is exhausted (without my consent). The half of this which I shall retain after taxation will be welcome, but not yet great riches. . . . .
It was most kind and generous of you to send me a copy of
About the House.
I do not pretend that in me (a less generous-minded man than you) your writing arouses the same immediate response. But I can report this. I took the book away (when I took my convalescent wife to
the seaside). I took it up to read one night when I was about to get into a warm bed (about midnight). At 2.30 a.m. I found myself, rather cold, still out of bed, reading and re-reading it.
Yours ever,
[carbon copy unsigned]
8 April 1966
If my letter to you of February 23rd was a little tart, I must confess that this was caused by the article in the New Yorker purporting to report the meeting of the Tolkien Society in New York and your remarks about me â not to mention Peter Salus' (as reported) nonsense about the shape of Middle-earth. In case you have missed it I enclose a copy. These remarks, if correctly summarised, seem to me so fantastically wide of the mark that I should have to enter into a long correspondence in order to correct your notions of me sufficiently for the purpose. It is also unfortunate that the general Press, with its usual slant towards sneering, fastened on your remarks about my house and pictures. This was the main item in reports in English papers and exposed my wife and myself to a certain amount of ridicule.
27 April 1966
[The following is one of many short replies that Tolkien wrote at this period of his life to readers who asked questions about his books. Its characteristic brevity may be compared to the long replies of the years immediately after
The Lord of the Rings
was published.]
There are no âGods', properly so-called, in the mythological background in my stories. Their place is taken by the persons referred to as the Valar (or Powers): angelic created beings appointed to the government of the world. The Elves naturally believed in them as they lived with them, But to explain all this would simply hinder my getting on with publishing it in proper form.
10 May 1966
[Tolkien's telephone number was still in the Oxford directory, and he was sometimes bothered by calls from âfans'.]
Thank you very much for your suggestions about my telephone number, which I will consider. Removing the number from the
directory seems better than the method adopted by Major W. H. Lewis in protecting his brother, which was to lift the receiver and say âOxford Sewage Disposal Unit' and go on repeating it until they went away.
[The English Faculty of Oxford University wished to acquire a bust of Tolkien by his daughter-in-law Faith. The bust was duly presented to them, and now stands in the English Faculty Library.]
10 May 1966
76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford
Dear Norman,
I feel much honoured, and so also does my daughter-in-law (the sculptress), by the Faculty's wish to place the bust of me in the English Library in some prominent position â if on second thoughts you do not think a storied urn would be better. I shall be most pleased to present it to the Faculty.
It occurs to me that the plaster bust is rather fragile and very easily damaged. I suggest, therefore, that I should have it cast in bronze for presentation (at my own cost). I have already referred the matter to the sculptress who knows how these things are done. Once in bronze it would then be unaffected by any dignities or indignities offered to it. I often used to hang my hat on the Tsar of Russia's bust, which he graciously presented to Merton.
Yours ever,
Ronald.
29 July 1966
Mirkwood
is not an invention of mine, but a very ancient name, weighted with legendary associations. It was probably the Primitive Germanic name for the great mountainous forest regions that anciently formed a barrier to the south of the lands of Germanic expansion. In some traditions it became used especially of the boundary between Goths and Huns. I speak now from memory: its ancientness seems indicated by its appearance in very early German (11th c. ?) as
mirkiwidu
although the
*
merkw-
stem âdark' is not otherwise found in German at all (only in O.E., O.S., and O.N.), and the stem
*
widu-
witu
was in German (I think) limited to the sense âtimber', not very common, and did not survive into mod. G. In O.E.
mirce
only survives in poetry, and in the sense âdark', or rather âgloomy', only in
Beowulf
1405
ofer myrcan mor:
elsewhere only with the sense âmurky' > wicked, hellish.
It was never, I think, a mere âcolour' word: âblack', and was from the beginning weighted with the sense of âgloom'. . . . .
It seemed to me too good a fortune that Mirkwood remained intelligible (with exactly the right tone) in modern English to pass over: whether
mirk
is a Norse loan or a freshment of the obsolescent O.E. word.
28 October 1966
[Tolkien's grandson was now a graduate student at Oxford.]
I am interested to hear what you say about your work, and your growing view of âresearch' as applied to modern literature. I am myself and always have been sceptical about âresearch' of any kind as part of the occupation or training of younger people in the language-literature schools. There is such a lot to
learn
first. It is often forced on students after schools because of the desire to climb on to the great band-waggon of Science (or at least onto a little trailer in tow) and so capture a little of the prestige
and
money which âThe Sovereignties and Powers and the rulers of this world' shower upon the Sacred Cow (as one writer, a scientist, has named it) and its acolytes. But many of those devoted to the Arts privately desire nothing more than a chance to read more.