The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

by Humphrey Carpenter

  J. R. R. Tolkien.

  26 To Stanley Unwin

  [On 2 March, Unwin sent Tolkien an extract from a reader’s report on C. S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet. The reader commented: ‘Mr Lewis is quite likely, I dare say, to write a worth while novel one day. This one isn’t good enough – quite.’ The reader judged the creatures of the planet Malacandra to be ‘bunk’. Unwin asked Tolkien for his opinion of the book.]

  4 March 1938

  20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

  Dear Mr Unwin,

  I wrote you the enclosed letter1 some time ago; but I hesitated to send it, knowing that you would wish to send Mr Lewis’ work to your reader, and not wishing to interfere beyond getting you to consider it. Lewis is a great friend of mine, and we are in close sympathy (witness his two reviews of my Hobbit): this may make for understanding, but it may also cast an unduly rosy light. Since you ask for my opinion, here it is.

  I read the story in the original MS. and was so enthralled that I could do nothing else until I had finished it. My first criticism was simply that it was too short. I still think that criticism holds, for both practical and artistic reasons. Other criticisms, concerning narrative style (Lewis is always apt to have rather creaking stiff-jointed passages), inconsistent details in the plot, and philology, have since been corrected to my satisfaction. The author holds to items of linguistic invention that do not appeal to me (Malacandra, Maleldil – eldila, in any case, I suspect to be due to the influence of the Eldar in the Silmarillion – and Pfifltriggi); but this is a matter of taste. After all your reader found my invented names, made with cherished care, eye-splitting. But the linguistic inventions and the philology on the whole are more than good enough. All the part about language and poetry – the glimpses of its Malacandrian nature and form – is very well done, and extremely interesting, far superior to what one usually gets from travellers in untravelled regions. The language difficulty is usually slid over or fudged. Here it not only has verisimilitude, but also underlying thought.

  I was disturbed by your reader’s report. I am afraid that at the first blush I feel inclined to retort that anyone capable of using the word ‘bunk’ will inevitably find matter of this sort – bunk. But one must be reasonable. I realize of course that to be even moderately marketable such a story must pass muster on its surface value, as a vera historia of a journey to a strange land. I am extremely fond of the genre, even having read Land under England2 with some pleasure (though it was a weak example, and distasteful to me in many points). I thought Out of the Silent Planet did pass this test very successfully. The openings and the actual mode of transportation in time or space are always the weakest points of such tales. They are well enough worked here, but there should be more narrative given to adventure on Malacandra to balance and justify them. The theme of three distinct rational species (hnau) requires more attention to the third species, Pfifltriggi. Also the central episode of the visit to Eldilorn is reached too soon, artistically. Also would not the book be in fact practically rather short for a narrative of this type?

  But I should have said that the story had for the more intelligent reader a great number of philosophical and mythical implications that enormously enhanced without detracting from the surface ‘adventure’. I found the blend of vera historia with mythos irresistible. There are of course certain satirical elements, inevitable in any such traveller’s tale, and also a spice of satire on other superficially similar works of ‘scientific’ fiction – such as the reference to the notion that higher intelligence will inevitably be combined with ruthlessness. The underlying myth is of course that of the Fall of the Angels (and the fall of man on this our silent planet); and the central point is the sculpture of the planets revealing the erasure of the sign of the Angel of this world. I cannot understand how any one can say this sticks in his gullet, unless (a) he thinks this particular myth ‘bunk’, that is not worth adult attention (even on a mythical plane); or (b) the use of it unjustified or perhaps unsuccessful. The latter is perhaps arguable – though I dissent – but at any rate the critique should have pointed out the existence of the myth. Oyarsa is not of course a ‘nice kind scientific God’,3 but something so profoundly different that the difference seems to have been unnoticed, namely an Angel. Yet even as a nice kind scientific God I think he compares favourably with the governing potentates of other stories of this kind. His name is not invented, but is from Bernardus Silvestris, as I think is explained at the end of the book (not that I think that this learned detail matters, but it is as legitimate as pseudo-scientific learning). In conclusion I might say that in designating the Pfifltriggi as the ‘workers’ your reader also misses the point, and is misled by current notions that are not applicable. But I have probably said more than enough. I at any rate should have bought this story at almost any price if I had found it in print, and loudly recommended it as a ‘thriller’ by (however and surprisingly) an intelligent man. But I know only too sadly from efforts to find anything to read even with an ‘on demand’ subscription at a library that my taste is not normal. I read ‘Voyage to Arcturus’4 with avidity – the most comparable work, though it is both more powerful and more mythical (and less rational, and also less of a story – no one could read it merely as a thriller and without interest in philosophy religion and morals). I wonder what your reader thinks of it? All the same I shall be comforted on my own behalf, if the second reader supports my taste a bit more!

  *

  The sequel to The Hobbit has now progressed as far as the end of the third chapter. But stories tend to get out of hand, and this has taken an unpremeditated turn. Mr Lewis and my youngest boy are reading it in bits as a serial. I hesitate to bother your son, though I should value his criticisms. At any rate if he would like to read it in serial form he can. My Christopher and Mr Lewis approve it enough to say that they think it is better than the Hobbit; but Rayner need not agree!

  I have received a copy of the American edition. Not so bad. I am glad they have included the eagle picture, but I cannot imagine why they have spoilt the Rivendell picture, by slicing the top and cutting out the ornament at the bottom. All the numerous textual errors are of course included. I hope it will some day be possible to get rid of them.

  I don’t know whether you saw the long and ridiculous letter in The Observer of Feb. 20, and thought I had suddenly gone cracked. I think the editor was unfair. There was a letter signed Habit in the paper in January (asking if the hobbit was influenced by Julian Huxley’s lectures on furry African pygmies, and other questions). I sent this jesting reply with a stamped envelope for transmission to Habit; and also a short and fairly sane reply for publication. Nothing happened for a month, and then I woke up to find my ill-considered joke occupying nearly a column.

  With best wishes. Yours sincerely,

  J. R. R. Tolkien.

  27 To the Houghton Mifflin Company

  [An extract from a letter apparently addressed to Tolkien’s American publishers, and probably written in March or April 1938. Houghton Mifflin seem to have asked him to supply drawings of hobbits for use in some future edition of The Hobbit.]

  I am afraid, if you will need drawings of hobbits in various attitudes, I must leave it in the hands of someone who can draw. My own pictures are an unsafe guide – e.g. the picture of Mr. Baggins in Chapter VI and XII. The very ill-drawn one in Chapter XIX is a better guide than these in general impressions.

  I picture a fairly human figure, not a kind of ‘fairy’ rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and ‘elvish’; hair short and curling (brown). The feet from the ankles down, covered with brown hairy fur. Clothing: green velvet breeches; red or yellow waistcoat; brown or green jacket; gold (or brass) buttons; a dark green hood and cloak (belonging to a dwarf).

  Actual size – only important if other objects are in picture – say about three feet or three feet six inches. The hobbit in the picture
of the gold-hoard, Chapter XII, is of course (apart from being fat in the wrong places) enormously too large. But (as my children, at any rate, understand) he is really in a separate picture or ‘plane’ – being invisible to the dragon.

  There is in the text no mention of his acquiring of boots. There should be! It has dropped out somehow or other in the various revisions – the bootings occurred at Rivendell; and he was again bootless after leaving Rivendell on the way home. But since leathery soles, and well-brushed furry feet are a feature of essential hobbitness, he ought really to appear unbooted, except in special illustrations of episodes.

  28 To Stanley Unwin

  [On 1 June, Unwin told Tolkien that Houghton Mifflin had now sold approximately three thousand copies of the American edition of The Hobbit. In April, the book had been awarded a $250 prize by the New York Herald Tribune for the best juvenile story of the season. Meanwhile Rayner Unwin had criticised the second and third chapters of the new story for having too much ‘hobbit talk’.]

  4 June 1938

  20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

  Dear Mr Unwin,

  Thank you for your comforting news. It is indeed comforting, for in spite of unexpected strokes of luck, such as the American prize, I am in considerable difficulties; and things will not be improved in September, when I vacate my research fellowship. That will mean, of course, that the pressure on my writing time will be less, except that as far as I can see I shall have to return to the examination treadmill1 to keep the boat afloat.

  Your previous letters of April 29 and May 3 have I fear long lain unanswered. I meant long ago to have thanked Rayner for bothering to read the tentative chapters, and for his excellent criticism. It agrees strikingly with Mr Lewis’, which is therefore confirmed. I must plainly bow to my two chief (and most well-disposed) critics. The trouble is that ‘hobbit talk’ amuses me privately (and to a certain degree also my boy Christopher) more than adventures; but I must curb this severely. Although longing to do so, I have not had a chance to touch any story-writing since the Christmas vacation. With three works in Middle English and Old English going to or through the press, and another in Old Norse in a series of which I am an editor under my hand on behalf of the author who is abroad,2 and students coming in July from Belgium and Canada to work under my direction, I cannot see any loophole left for months!. . . .

  Yours sincerely

  J. R. R. Tolkien.

  P.S. My answer was delayed, because your letter arrived in the midst of our little local strife. You may not have noticed that on June 2 the Rev. Adam Fox3 was elected Professor of Poetry, defeating a Knight and a noble Lord. He was nominated by Lewis and myself, and miraculously elected: our first public victory over established privilege. For Fox is a member of our literary club of practising poets – before whom the Hobbit, and other works (such as the Silent Planet) have been read. We are slowly getting even into print. One of Fox’s works is Old King Coel, a rhymed tale in four books (Oxford).

  29 From a letter to Stanley Unwin

  25 July 1938

  [Allen & Unwin had negotiated the publication of a German translation of The Hobbit with Rütten & Loening of Potsdam. This firm wrote to Tolkien asking if he was of ‘arisch’ (aryan) origin.]

  I must say the enclosed letter from Rütten and Loening is a bit stiff. Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of ‘arisch’ origin from all persons of all countries?

  Personally I should be inclined to refuse to give any Bestätigung1 (although it happens that I can), and let a German translation go hang. In any case I should object strongly to any such declaration appearing in print. I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.

  You are primarily concerned, and I cannot jeopardize the chance of a German publication without your approval. So I submit two drafts of possible answers.

  30 To Rütten & Loening Verlag

  [One of the ‘two drafts’ mentioned by Tolkien in the previous letter. This is the only one preserved in the Allen & Unwin files, and it seems therefore very probable that the English publishers sent the other one to Germany. It is clear that in that letter Tolkien refused to make any declaration of ‘arisch’ origin.]

  25 July 1938

  20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

  Dear Sirs,

  Thank you for your letter. . . . . I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject – which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

  Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its suitability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.1

  I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and

  remain yours faithfully

  J. R. R. Tolkien.

  31 To C. A. Furth, Allen & Unwin

  [Among the stories that Tolkien showed to his publishers during 1937, as a possible successor to The Hobbit, was a short version of Farmer Giles of Ham. Allen & Unwin liked it, but felt that it would need the companionship of other stories to make it into a book of sufficient length. They also, of course, encouraged Tolkien to write the sequel to The Hobbit.]

  24 July 1938

  20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

  Dear Mr Furth,

  The Hobbit ought to have come out this year not last. Next year I should have probably had time and mood for a follower. But pressure of work as a ‘research fellow’, which has to be wound up if possible by September, has taken all my time, and also dried up invention. The sequel to the Hobbit has remained where it stopped. It has lost my favour, and I have no idea what to do with it. For one thing the original Hobbit was never intended to have a sequel – Bilbo ‘remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long’: a sentence I find an almost insuperable obstacle to a satisfactory link. For another nearly all the ‘motives’ that I can use were packed into the original book, so that a sequel will appear either ‘thinner’ or merely repetitional. For a third: I am personally immensely amused by hobbits as such, and can contemplate them eating and making their rather fatuous jokes indefinitely; but I find that is not the case with even my most devoted ‘fans’ (such as Mr Lewis, and ? Rayner Unwin). Mr Lewis says hobbits are only amusing when in unhobbitlike situations. For a last: my mind on the ‘story’ side is really preoccupied with the ‘pure’ fairy stories or mythologies of the Silmarillion, into which even Mr Baggins got dragged against my original will, and I do not think I shall be able to move much outside it – unless it is finished (and perhaps published) – which has a releasing effect. The only line I have, quite outside that, is ‘Farmer Giles’ and the Little Kingdom (with its capital at Thame). I rewrote that to about 50% longer, last January, and read it to the Lovelace Society1 in lieu of a paper ‘on’ fairy stories. I was very much surprised at the result. It
took nearly twice as long as a proper ‘paper’ to read aloud; and the audience was apparently not bored – indeed they were generally convulsed with mirth. But I am afraid that means it has taken on a rather more adult and satiric flavour. Anyway I have not written the necessary two or three other stories of the Kingdom to go with it!

  It looks like Mr Bliss. If you think that is worthy of publication. I can bring it back to you, if you wish. I do not think that I personally can do anything to improve it.

  I am really very sorry: for my own sake as well as yours I would like to produce something. But September seems quite out of the question this year. I hope inspiration and the mood will return. It is not for lack of wooing that it holds aloof. But my wooing of late has been perforce intermittent. The Muses do not like such half-heartedness.

  Yours sincerely

  J. R. R. Tolkien.

  32 To John Masefield

  [Masefield, then Poet Laureate, together with Nevill Coghill organised an entertainment in Oxford during the summers of 1938 and 1939, entitled Summer Diversions. In 1938 he invited Tolkien to impersonate Chaucer and recite from memory the Nun’s Priest’s Tale. He wrote to Tolkien enclosing some lines of verse with which he proposed to introduce him.]

  27 July 1938

  20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

  Dear Mr Masefield,