- The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
Infobox Book
name = The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
title_orig =
translator =
image_caption = Dust wrapper of UK first edition
author =Humphrey Carpenter (editor), withChristopher Tolkien
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country =United Kingdom andUnited States
language = English
series =
subject =J. R. R. Tolkien
genre = Letters
publisher =George Allen & Unwin ,Houghton Mifflin
release_date = 1981
english_release_date =
media_type =
pages =
isbn = 0-0482-6005-3
preceded_by =
followed_by ="The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien" (ISBN 0-618-05699-8) is a selection of
J. R. R. Tolkien 's letters published in 1981, edited by Tolkien's biographerHumphrey Carpenter assisted byChristopher Tolkien . The selection contains 354 letters, dating between October 1914, when Tolkien was an undergraduate at Oxford, andAugust 29 ,1973 , four days before his death.Categories
The letters can be roughly divided in four categories:
#Personal letters to Edith Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien and his other children,
#Letters about Tolkien's career as a professor of Anglo-Saxon
#Letters to his publishers atAllen & Unwin explaining his failing to meet the deadline and related topics
#Letters aboutMiddle-earth The last category is especially of interest to Tolkien fans, as it provides a lot of information about
Middle-earth which cannot be found anywhere in the works published by Tolkien himself.A few letters of interest
German translation
In letters 29 & 30, it appears that a German
translation of "The Hobbit " was being negotiated in 1938. The German firm inquired whether Tolkien was of "Arisch" (Aryan ) origin. Tolkien was infuriated by this, and wrote two drafts of possible replies for his publisher to choose. [Humphrey Carpenter: "The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien", Editorial comments at the head of "Letter 30".] The first one is not present - in it Tolkien is assumed to have refused to give any declaration whatsoever of his racial origins. The second, surviving, draft included:War
A former signals officer at the
Battle of the Somme , Tolkien frequently expressed his great dislike forwar , whatever the cause. This is evident in a great many letters which he wrote during theSecond World War to his son Christopher, which often invoke a sense of gloom. Notable among these is his reaction to theAtomic Bomb ing ofHiroshima , in which he refers to the bombmakers of theManhattan Project as 'lunatics ' and 'babel builders.'Footnotes
External links
* [http://mysite.verizon.net/aznirb/mtr/lettersfaq.html Tolkien Letters FAQ]
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