TCBS: Tea Club and Barrovian Society: JRR Tolkien, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Smith, and Christopher Wiseman.
Tolkien, Battalion Signalling Officer to the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers; arrived on the Somme battlefield just as the Allied offensive of 1 July was beginning.
Wiseman: Navy
Tolkien, Gilson and Smith: Army, Somme; On that day July 1st, Rob Gilson was killed in action. Tolkien did not get the news until some weeks later.
1920
Tolkien appointed Reader in English Language at Leeds University, a post that was later converted into a Professorship; now married to Edith Bratt; by 1923, two children, John and Michael; 1922 -- published a glossary to a Middle English Reader;
1925
Accepts Rawlinson & Bosworth professorship at Oxford; Tolkien wrote the greater part of The Hobbit during his first seven years as Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford.
1937
The Hobbit was published 21 September 1937. Discusses philology, names used in the story, etc., in a 31 August 1937 letter.
Discusses his use of the incorrect plural dwarves which he was not aware of and quite embarrassed, 15 October 1937 letter to his publisher. Tooth/teeth; so, the proper was drawf/dwarrow, but the latter was too archaic, though he says he wishes he had used the word dwarrow. In that same letter says that he has nothing more to write regarding the hobbits, but if more is wanted, he will think about what might be written.
1938
In a 25 July 1938 letter to publishers in Germany in which he discusses his ethnic background: not Jewish.
1939
By the end of 1938, The Lord of the Rings had reached Chapter 12 running to over 300 manuscript pages; and he was using that title for the story. This is the earliest I have seen him use this name, but I may have missed earlier references. Talks at length about TLOTR in a 2 February 1939 letter to his publisher. Mentions that he cannot draw illustrations for this book, but "A map (very necessary) would be all I could do." He had reached chapter XVI by now.
1940
In September, 1940, Tolkien's second son, Michael, then aged 19, volunteered for army service; instructed to spend one year at university and then enlist. He entered Trinity College, Oxford, and left it the following summer to train as an anti-aircraft gunner.
1941
An interesting letter on romance, love, and sex in a letter dated 6 - 8 March 1941; several pages long and often personal.
Discusses Germanic background and Germanic matters in letter dtd 9 June 1941.
1942
Warns that the sequel is not "juvenile" at all; nearly completed; has reached Chapter XXXI but will need at least six more chapters. If not long enough could add additional topics, including 'Tom Bombadil."
1943
Long draft letter to CS Lewis, apparently written in 1943, on the subject of marriage: Christian marriage and marriage-contracts.
In 1943, his son Christopher, age 18, his youngest, was called up in the Royal Air Force; in training at Manchester 29 November 1943.
1944
A series of long letters from Tolkien to his son Christopher who was sent to South Africa, where he was to train as a pilot. The letters were numbered; the first letter was dtd 18 January 1944.
In a letter dated 7 - 8 November 1944, JRR makes a reference to "your guardian angel." This will come up later in when JRR talks about The Lord of the Rings.
1945
January 30, 1945: this whole period, 1944 - 1945, many letter to Christopher; he is sending Christopher manuscripts of his book. Mentions that the Russians are 60 miles from Berlin.
1949
The first letter to Naomi Mitchison; his letters to Naomi are very good; much explanation about his stories. Naomi was a highly successful novelist in her own right. The more I read, the more I feel that writers are truly very, very special; in a world of their own; and, perhaps, closer to God than non-writers.
1951
The Lord of the Rings still not published and JRR getting more and more frustrated. In an undated letter, but probably written in 1951, JRR sends a 10,000-word letter to his published explaining his books, and why The Lord of the Rings cannot be broken up into smaller books. This is the first best letter (that I have found) that really explains so much about The Lord of the Rings. This letter alone may be the most important for Tolkienphiles who have not read this yet. It sounds like Carpenter cut this letter down a bit for publication in this book, but still it runs to almost 21 pages.
1953
In a letter dated March 24, 1953, following Allen & Unwin decision to publish The Lord of the Rings in three volumes, priced at twenty-one shillings each. (20 shillings/pound prior to 1971 -- decimalization occurred -- and 12 pennies to a shilling; so 21 shillings would be almost one pound; according to one site: In 1955, £1 would have the same spending worth of £17 in 2005. And you know, that sounds about right, spending about $25 for a book today -- 2013.) In this letter, Tolkien proposes names for the three volumes: (p. 167 -- quite different from what they ultimately were, at least in the US).
August 8, 1952, to Unwin -- still opposed to having separate titles for each of the three volumes, and no over-all title. He wants an overall title (and will eventually give in to three separate "sub-titles'). He says The Lord of the Rings is a good over-all title, but he thinks it is "not applicable specially to Volume I, indeed it is probably least suited to that volume." -- p. 169
August 17, 1953, to Unwin: title suggestion. Overall title, The Lord of the Rings: volume I, The Fellowship of the Ring. Volume II: The Two Towers. Volume III: The War of the Rings (or, if you still prefer: The Return of the King). Wow.
October 9, 1953: the maps are essential.
1954
January 22, 1954: "I am not at all happy about the title 'The Two Towers.' It must if there is any real reference in it to Vol II refer to Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. But since there is so much made of the basic opposition of the Dark Tower and Minas Tirith, that seems very misleading. There is, of course, actually no real connecting link between books III and IV, when cut off and presented separately as a volume."
April 25, 1954: The second letter in this book to Naomi Mitchison; again a very good letter discussing his books. It was either in this letter or an earlier letter in which JRR talks of elves, and that one elf, in particular, Gandalf, was sent to look after men (or the hobbits) as a sort of guardian angel. This is huge; perhaps "everyone" knew this, but to see it spelled out by JRR Tolkien is very, very interesting. Somewhere between this letter and the earlier letter to Unwin was his note that Gandalf was a guardian angel. I can't find it at the moment.
August 7, 1954
Letter to Katherine Farrer
The first volume of The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, was published on July 29, 1954.
September, 1954
A nice theological discussion; a draft letter. Need to re-read more closely.
September 25, 1954
To Naomi Mitchison
Another great discussion. Begins with the mortals (men, hobbits, and dwarfs). References his experience in two wars (p. 197). Hobbits are an "historical accident" as the Elves point out to Frodo.
"But in any case this is a tale about a war, and if war is allowed (at least as a topic and a setting) it is not much good complaining that all the people on one side are against those on the other. Not that I have made even this issue quite so simple: there are Saruman, and Denethor, and Boromir; and there are treacheries and strife even among the Orcs."
At this website, the writer says that Tolkien was explicit in calling Gandalf a guardian angel in his November 4, 1954, letter to the priest Robert Murray. This is another important letter, but a quick scan I did not see "guardian angel" in the text that I have. I need to read it more closely; it is also not in the index.
November 27, 1954
A letter to Katherine Farrer; the second volume of The Lord of the Rings was published, under the title The Two Towers, on November 11, 1954.
1955
June 7, 1955
Letter to W. H. Auden. Wow.
June 30, 1955
In a letter to Houghton Mifflin regarding comments in a book review.
"Middle-earth," by the way, is not a name of a never-never land without relation to the world we live in. It is just a use of Middle English middel-erde (or erthe), altered from Old English Middangeard: the name for the inhabited lands of Men 'between the seas.'
P.S. Again, the book is not a trilogy; that and the titles of the volumes was a fudge thought necessary for publication, owing to length and cost. There is no real division into 3, nor is any one part intelligible alone. The story was conceived and written as a whole and the only natural divisions are the 'books' I - IV (which originally had titles).
The kernel of the mythology, the matter of Luthien Tinuviel and Beren, arose from a small woodland glade filled with 'hemlocks' (or other white umbellifers) near Roos on the Holderness peninsula -- to which I occasionally went when free from regimental duties while in the Humber Garrison in 1918.
From wiki:
Holderness is an area of the East Riding of Yorkshire, on the east coast of England. An area of rich agricultural land, Holderness was marshland until it was drained in the Middle Ages. Topographically, Holderness has more in common with the Netherlands than other parts of Yorkshire. To the north and west are the Yorkshire Wolds.
From wiki: Roos is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated 12 miles (19 km) east from Kingston upon Hull city centre and 3.5 miles (6 km) north-west from Withernsea, and on the B1242 road.The mythology (and associated languages) first began to take shape during the 1914 - 1918 war. The Fall of Gondolin (and the birth of Earendil) was written in hospital and on leave after surviving the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
The heart remains in the description of Cerin Amroth (end of Vol. I, Bk. ii, ch. 6), but I am most stirred by the sound of the horses of the Rohirrim at cockcrow; and most grieved by Gollum's failure (just) to repent when interrupted by Sam: this seems to me really the real world in which the instruments of just retribution are seldom themselves just or holy; and the good are often stumbling blocks ...
September 7, 1955
A letter to a fan.
Frodo is a real name from the Germanic tradition. Its Old English form was Froda. Its obvious connexion is with the old word frod meaning etymologically 'wise by experience', but it had mythological connexions with legends of the Golden Age in the North...
October 24, 1955
A letter to Katherine Farrar.
The third volume, The Return of the King, was published October 20, 1955.
November 10, 1955
A letter to Lord Halsbury
I do not think that anything is referred to in The L. of the R. which does not actually exist in legens written before it was begun, or at least belonging to an earlier period -- except only the 'cats of Queen Beruthiel.'
1956
February 1956
To Michael Straight (drafts)
Again, Tolkien says The L. of the R. was a fairy tale, and the audience: adults.
No special reference to England in the 'Shire' -- except of course that as an Englishman brought up in an 'almost rural' village of Warwickshire on the edge of prosperous bourgeoisie of Birmingham ...
That is why I regard the tale of Arwen and Aragorn as the most important of the Appendices; it is part of the essential story, and is only placed so, because it could not be worked into the main narrative without destroying its structure: which is planned to be 'hobbito-centric', that is, primarily a study of the ennoblement (or sanctification) of the humble. p. 237
Eary 1956, not dated
Reply to WH Auden
Last line of that letter (p. 244): "Mine is not an 'imaginary' world, but an imaginary historical moment on 'Middle-earth' -- which is our habitation."
April 1956, not dated
A reply to Joanna de Bortadano (who asked whether the story was an allegory of nuclear power).
The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death (man) and Immortality (the elves); the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race 'doomed' to leave adn seemingly lose it (man); the anguish in the hearts of a race 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete (the elves). But if you have now read Vol III and the story of Aragon, you will have perceived that. (This story is placed in an appendix, because I have told the whole tale more or less through 'hobbits'; and that is because another main point in the story for me is the remark of Elrond in Vol I: "Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." Though equally important is Merry's remark (Vol III, p. 146): "The soil of the Shire is deep. Still there are things deeper and higher; and not a gaffer could tend his garden in what he calls peace, but for them.")
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There may be fewer entries following the April, 1956, entries, as I move more quickly through the book.
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1960
December 31, 1960,
The Lord of the Rings was actually begun, as a separate thing, about 1937, and had reached the inn at Bree, before the shadow of the second war. Personally I do not think that either war (and of course not the atomic bomb) had any influence upon either the plot or the manner of its unfolding. Perhaps in landscape. The Dear Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme. They owe more to William Morris and his Huns and Romans, as in The House of the Wolfings or The Roots of the Mountains.
1961
Tolkien received a copy of the Puffin Books edition of The Hobbits in September 1961.
1962
July 20, 1962 -- with reference to the Spanish translation of The Hobbit.
If gnomos is used as a translation of dwarves, then it must not appear on p. 63 in the elves that are not called Gnomes.....Pedantically, associating it with Greek gnome 'thought, intelligence.'
1963
Undated (p. 323)
Eowyn: It is possible to love more than one person (of the other sex) at the same time, but in a different mode and intensity.
Criticism of the speed of the relationship or 'love' of Faramir and Eowyn. In my experience feelings and decisions ripen very quickly (as measured by mere 'clock-time', which is actually not justly applicable) in periods of great stress, adn especially under the expectation of imminent death. And I do not think that persons of high estate and breeding need al the petty fencing and approaches in matters of 'love'. This tale does not deal with a period of 'Courtly Love' and its pretences (sic); but with a culture more primitive (sc. less corrupt) and nobler. (p. 324)
June 25, 1963
A reader asks, what happened to Elves when they died in battle?
As for the Elves. Even in these legends we see the Elves mainly through the eyes of Men. It is in any case clear that neither side was fully informed about the ultimate destiny of the other. The Elves were sufficiently longeval to be called by Man 'immortal'. But they were not unaging or unwearying. Their own tradition was that they were confined to the limits of this world (in space and time), even if they died, and would continue in some form to exist in it until 'the end of the world'. But what 'the end of the world' portended for it or for themselves they did not know (though they no doubt had theories). Neiter had they of course any special information concerning what 'death' portended for Men. They believed that it meant 'liberation from the circles of the world', and was in that respect to them enviable. And they would point out to Men who envied them that a dread of ultimate loss, though it may be indefinitely remote, is not necessarily the easier to bear if it is in the end ineluctably certain: a burden may become heavier the longer it is borne.
September, 1963
A long, long letter on Frodo as a heroic failure to destroy the ring when he had a chance. p. 325.
A long passage on Sam begins on p. 329.
November 1, 1963
A long letter to his son Michael who is depressed; a long discussion of religion.
December, 1963 (not dated) p. 341
On the death of C.S. Lewis.
1964
July 16, 1964
A long letter on his life as a philologist and how the stories began.
1965
May 12, 1965, from a letter to WH Auden who had asked that if the notion of Orcs, an entire race that was irredeemably wicked, was not heretical. Tolkien's reply: "With regard to The Lord of the Rings, I cannot claim to be a sufficient theologian to say whether my notion of orcs is heretical or not. I don't feel under any obligation to make my story fit with formalized Christian theology, though I actually intended it to be consonant with Christian thought and belief, which is asserted somewhere, Book Five, page 190, where Frodo asserts that the orcs are not evil in origin. We believe that, I suppose, of all human kinds and sorts and breeds, though some appear, both as individuals and groups to be, by us at any rate, unredeemable ...
September 12, 1965
Another long letter, and again, a lot on Numinor. I think to understand The Lord of the Rings, understanding more about Numinor is important. Tolkien says in this letter: "CS Lewis was one of the only three persons who have so far read all or a considerable part of my 'mythology' of the First and Second Ages, which had already been in the main lines constructed before we met. He had the peculiarity that he liked to be read to. All that he knew of my 'matter' was what his capacious but not infallible memory retained from my reading to him as sole audience. His spelling numinor is a hearing error, aided, no doubt, by his association of the name with Latin numen, numina, and the adjective 'numinous'. Unfortunate, since the name has not such connexions ...
1967
February 8, 1967
A long letter to Charlotte and Denis Plimmer; again, much information, including:
The writer had suggested, again, "Middle-earth ... corresponds spiritually to Nordic Europe." Tolkien's reply: "Not Nordic, please! A word I personally dislike; it is associated, though of French origin, with racialist theories. Geographically Northern is usually better. But examination will show that even this is inapplicable (geographically or spiritually) to 'Middle-earth.' This is an old word, not invented by me, as reference to a dictionary such as the Shorter Oxford will show. It meant the habitable lands of our world, wet amid the surrounding Ocean. The action of the story takes place in the North-west of 'Middle-earth,' equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. But this is not a purely 'Nordic' area in any sense. If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy."
Tolkien goes on:
"Auden has asserted that for me 'the North is a sacred direction.' That is not true. The North-west of Europe, where I (and most of my ancestors) have lived, has my affection, as a man's home should. I love its atmosphere, and know more of its histories and languages than I do of other parts; but it is not 'sacred,' nor does it exhaust my affections. I have, for instance, a particular love for the Latin language, and among its descendants for Spanish. That it is untrue for my story, a mere reading of the synopses should show. The North was the seat of the fortresses of the Devil. The progress of the tale ends in what is far more like the re-establishment of an effective Holy Roman Empire with its seat in Rome than anything that would be devised by a 'Nordic.'
August, 1967, undated drafts, p. 379
Again, long explanations
September 11, 1967
On the origins of the name Inklings.
1971
January 8, 1971; p. 406
On his claim to have invented "hobbit."
January 25, 1971, p. 407
On Galadriel and ties to the imagination of Mary.
June 4 - 5, 1971, p. 409
On Gondor and Gamgee; origins of these names
November 29, 1971
His wife dies.
1972
July 11, 1972
Wife's gravestone to be inscribed: Edith Mary Tolkien, 1889 - 1971, Luthien
1973
August 29, 1973
To Priscilla Tolkien, written four days before Tolkien died, at the age of 81
Page 432
And then a tear.
Mine.
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So, this is the first go-through for me for this book. I will return to it often, but don't know if I will actually add any more notes to this page.
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Elves: Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church, by Richard Firth Green, c. 2016. Great review at London Review of Books.
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