The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien Read Online Free PDF

one thing Professor Gordon 2 has actually read the book (supposed to be a rare event); and assures me that he will recommend it generally and to the Book Society. I may warn you that his promises are usually generous – but his judgement, at any rate, is pretty good. Professor Chambers 3 writes very enthusiastically, but he is an old and kindhearted friend. The most valuable is the document I enclose, in case it may interest you: a letter from R. Meiggs (at present editing the Oxford Magazine). He has no reason for sparing my feelings, and is usually a plain speaker. Of course, he has no connexions with reviewing coteries, and is virtually a mere member of the avuncular public.
    Yours sincerely
    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 nurserydays. . . . . 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 1 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?
    â€˜Philology’ – my real professional bag of tricks – may be abstruse, and perhaps more comparable to