The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien.

P.S. I enclose also a commentary on the jacket-flap words for your perusal at leisure – if you can read it.

[When The Hobbit was published on 21 September 1937, Allen & Unwin printed the following remarks on the jacket-flap: ‘J. R. R. Tolkien. . . . has four children and The Hobbit. . . . was read aloud to them in nursery days. . . . . The manuscript. . . . was lent to friends in Oxford and read to their children. . . . . The birth of The Hobbit recalls very strongly that of Alice in Wonderland. Here again a professor of an abstruse subject is at play.’ Tolkien now sent the following commentary on these remarks.]

By the way. I meant some time ago to comment on the additional matter that appears on the jacket. I don’t suppose it is a very important item in launching The Hobbit (while that book is only one minor incident in your concerns); so I hope you will take the ensuing essay in good part, and allow me the pleasure of explaining things (the professor will out), even if it does not appear useful.

I am in your hands, if you think that is the right note. Strict truth is, I suppose, not necessary (or even desirable). But I have a certain anxiety lest the H.M.Co seize upon the words and exaggerate the inaccuracy to falsehood. And reviewers are apt to lean on hints. At least I am when performing that function.

Nursery: I have never had one, and the study has always been the place for such amusements. In any case is the age-implication right? I should have said ‘the nursery’ ended about 8 when children go forth to school. That is too young. My eldest boy was thirteen when he heard the serial. It did not appeal to the younger ones who had to grow up to it successively.

Lent: we must pass that (though strictly it was forced on the friends by me). The MS. certainly wandered about, but it was not, as far as I know, ever read to children, and only read by one child (a girl of 12–13), before Mr Unwin tried it out.

Abstruse: I do not profess an ‘abstruse’ subject – not qua ‘Anglo-Saxon’. Some folk may think so, but I do not like encouraging them. Old English and Icelandic literature are no more remote from human concerns, or difficult to acquire cheaply, than commercial Spanish (say). I have tried both. In any case – except for the runes (Anglo-Saxon) and the dwarf-names (Icelandic), neither used with antiquarian accuracy, and both regretfully substituted to avoid abstruseness for the genuine alphabets and names of the mythology into which Mr Baggins intrudes – I am afraid my professional knowledge is not directly used. The magic and mythology and assumed ‘history’ and most of the names (e.g. the epic of the Fall of Gondolin) are, alas!, drawn from unpublished inventions, known only to my family, Miss Griffiths

and Mr Lewis. I believe they give the narrative an air of ‘reality’ and have a northern atmosphere. But I wonder whether one should lead the unsuspecting to imagine it all comes out of the ‘old books’, or tempt the knowing to point out that it does not?

‘Philology’ – my real professional bag of tricks – may be abstruse, and perhaps more comparable to Dodgson’s maths. So the real parallel (if one exists: I feel very much that it breaks down if examined)

lies in the fact that both these technical subjects in any overt form are absent. The only philological remark (I think) in The Hobbit is on p. 221 (lines 6–7 from end):

an odd mythological way of referring to linguistic philosophy, and a point that will (happily) be missed by any who have not read Barfield

(few have), and probably by those who have. I am afraid this stuff of mine is really more comparable to Dodgson’s amateur photography, and his song of Hiawatha’s failure than to Alice.

Professor: a professor at play rather suggests an elephant in its bath – as Sir Walter Raleigh

said of Professor Jo Wright in a sportive mood at a viva.

Strictly (I believe) Dodgson was not a ‘professor’, but a college lecturer – though he was kind to my kind in making the ‘professor’ the best character (unless you prefer the mad gardener) in Sylvie & Bruno. Why not ‘student’? The word has the added advantage that Dodgson’s official status was Student of Christ Church. If you think it good, and fair (the compliment to The Hobbit is rather high) to maintain the comparison – Looking-glass ought to be mentioned. It is much closer in every way. . . . .

J. R. R. Tolkien.

16 To Michael Tolkien.

[Tolkien’s second son Michael, now aged sixteen, was a pupil at the Oratory School in Berkshire, together with his younger brother Christopher. He was hoping to get into the school rugby football team.]

3 October 1937

20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Dearest Mick,

It was nice to have a letter from you. I hope all is going well. I thought the new flats

looked as if they would be presentable when furnished. It is good of you to keep a kindly eye on Chris, as far as you can. I expect he will make a mess of things to begin with, but he ought soon to find his bearings and be no more trouble to you or himself.

I am sorry and surprised you are not (yet) in the team. But many a man ends up in it and even with colours, who is rejected at first. It was so with me – and for same reason: too light. But one day I decided to make up for weight by (legitimate) ferocity, and I ended up a house-captain at end of that season, & got my colours the next. But I got rather damaged – among things having my tongue nearly cut out – and as I am on the whole rather luckier than you, I should really be quite happy if you remain uninjured though not in the team! But God bless you & keep you anyway. There is no very special news. Mummy seems to have taken to car-riding. We have been two since you left, and I have now got to take her, P. and J.B.

out this afternoon instead of writing. So this must be all for the moment. With v. much love indeed.

Your own

Father

17 To Stanley Unwin, Chairman of Allen & Unwin

[Unwin had sent Tolkien a letter from the author Richard Hughes, who had been given a copy of The Hobbit by Allen & Unwin. Hughes wrote to Unwin: ‘I agree with you that it is one of the best stories for children I have come across for a very long time. . . . . The only snag I can see is that many parents. . . . may be afraid that certain parts of it would be too terrifying for bedside reading.’ Unwin also mentioned that his own eleven-year-old son Rayner, who had written the report on the manuscript of The Hobbit which had led to its publication (see Biography pp. 180–81), had been re-reading the book now that it was in print. Unwin concluded by warning Tolkien that ‘a large public’ would be ‘clamouring next year to hear more from you about Hobbits!’]

15 October 1937

20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Dear Mr Unwin,

Thank you very much for your kind letter of October 11th, and now for the copy of Richard Hughes’ letter. I was particularly interested in this, since we are quite unknown to one another. The reviews in The Times and its Literary Supplement were good – that is (unduly) flattering; though I guess, from internal evidence, that they were both written by the same man,

and one whose approval was assured: we started with common tastes and reading, and have been closely associated for years. Still that in way detracts from their public effect. Also I must respect his opinion, as I believed him to be the best living critic until he turned his attention to me, and no degree of friendship would make him say what he does not mean: he is the most uncompromisingly honest man I have met!. . . .

No reviewer (that I have seen), although all have carefully used the correct dwarfs themselves, has commented on the fact (which I only became conscious of through reviews) that I use throughout the ‘incorrect’ plural dwarves. I am afraid it is just a piece of private bad grammar, rather shocking in a philologist; but I shall have to go on with it. Perhaps my dwarf – since he and the Gnome

are only translations into approximate equivalents of creatures with different names and rather different functions in their own world – may be allowed a peculiar plural. The real ‘historical’ plural of dwarf (like teeth of tooth) is dwarrows, anyway: rather a nice word, but a bit too archaic. Still I rather wish I had used the word dwarrow.

My heart warms to your son. To read the faint and close typescript was noble: to read the whole thing again so soon was a magnificent compliment.

I have received one postcard, alluding I suppose to the Times’ review: containing just the words:

sic hobbitur ad astra.

All the same I am a little perturbed. I cannot think of anything more to say about hobbits. Mr Baggins seems to have exhibited so fully both the Took and the Baggins side of their nature. But I have only too much to say, and much already written, about the world into which the hobbit intruded. You can, of course, see any of it, and say what you like about it, if and when you wish. I should rather like an opinion, other than that of Mr C. S. Lewis and my children, whether it has any value in itself, or as a marketable commodity, apart from hobbits. But if it is true that The Hobbit has come to stay and more will be wanted, I will start the process of thought, and try to get some idea of a theme drawn from this material for treatment in a similar style and for a similar audience – possibly including actual hobbits. My daughter would like something on the Took family. One reader wants fuller details about Gandalf and the Necromancer. But that is too dark – much too much for Richard Hughes’ snag. I am afraid that snag appears in everything; though actually the presence (even if only on the borders) of the terrible is, I believe, what gives this imagined world its verisimilitude. A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds. At the moment I am suffering like Mr Baggins from a touch of ‘staggerment’, and I hope I am not taking myself too seriously. But I must confess that your letter has aroused in me a faint hope. I mean, I begin to wonder whether duty and desire may not (perhaps) in future go more closely together. I have spent nearly all the vacation-times of seventeen years examining, and doing things of that sort, driven by immediate financial necessity (mainly medical and educational). Writing stories in prose or verse has been stolen, often guiltily, from time already mortgaged, and has been broken and ineffective. I may perhaps now do what I much desire to do, and not fail of financial duty. Perhaps!

I think ‘Oxford’ interest is mildly aroused. I am constantly asked how my hobbit is. The attitude is (as I foresaw) not unmixed with surprise and a little pity. My own college is I think good for about six copies, if only in order to find material for teasing me. Appearance in The Times convinced one or two of my more sedate colleagues that they could admit knowledge of my ‘fantasy’ (i.e. indiscretion) without loss of academic dignity. The professor of Byzantine Greek

bought a copy, ‘because first editions of “Alice” are now very valuable’. I did hear that the Regius Professor of Modern History was recently seen reading ‘The Hobbit’. It is displayed by Parkers

but not elsewhere (I think).

I am probably coming to town, to hear Professor Joseph Vendryes at the Academy on Wednesday Oct. 27th. I wonder would that be a suitable day for the luncheon you kindly asked me to last summer? And in any case, I could bring Mr Bliss to the office so as to get the definite advice on what is needed to make it reproducible promised by Mr Furth?

Yours sincerely

J. R. R. Tolkien.

PS. I acknowledge safe receipt of the specimen ‘pictures’ sent to America.

18 From a letter to Stanley Unwin

23 October 1937