This letter has been expanded so we will spend the next several weeks posting and discussing it.

First, i'm struck by the linguistic explanations that he has of his world and the importance of world building through language. We know that Tolkien is philologist first and foremost and his favorite languages were Welsh and Finnish, inspiration for ( Read more... )

From a letter to C. Ouboter, Voorhoeve en Dietrich, Rotterdam 1958

"As for 'message': I have none really, if by that is meant the conscious purpose in writing 'The Lord of the Rings', of preaching, or of delivering myself of a vision of truth specially revealed to me! I was primarily writing an exciting story in an atmosphere and background such as ( Read more... )

"Elrond and Elros, children of Eärendil (sea-lover) and Elwing (Elf-foam), were so called, because they were carried off by the sons of Fëanor, in the last act of the feud between the high elven houses of the Noldorin princes concerning the Silmarils; the Silmaril rescued from Morgoth by Beren and Lúthien, and given to King Thingol, Lúthien's ( Read more... )

But also happy Froday so we will have my fave letter 246 featuring our fave hobbit. :)

"Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence) and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. HIs humility (with which he began) and his sufferings were justly rewarded by the highest ( Read more... )

About the significance of the Great Wave

Letter #163:

I say this about the 'heart', for I have what some might call an Atlantis complex. Possibly inherited, though my parents died too young for me to know such things about them, and too young to transfer such things by words. Inherited from me (I suppose) by one only of my children, [note: Tolkien' ( Read more... )

"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 unageing or unwearying. Their own tradition was that they were confined ( Read more... )

Tolkien always wanted to publish Silmarillion first but LotR came about first and there was demand for a sequel for the Hobbit. Unwin wanted to publish LotR by itself and it was already spring of 1952.

I love these two paragraphs from Letter 133 to Rayner Unwin.

"As for the Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, they are where they were. The one ( Read more... )

“Also to be Prince of Ithilien, the greatest noble after Dol Amroth in the revived Numenorean state of Gondor, soon to be of imperial power and prestige, was not a 'market-garden job' as you term it. Until much had been done by the restored king, the P. of Ithilien would be the resident march-warden of Gondor, in its main eastward outpost - and ( Read more... )

"I have very little interest in serial literary history, and no interest at all in the history or present situation of the English 'novel'. My work is not a 'novel' but an 'heroic romance' a much older and quite different variety of literature." -Letter 329, Oct 1971

"I have seriously embarked on an effort to finish my book, and have been sitting ( Read more... )

Letter 282 about confidence in his work

"I have never had much confidence in my own work, and even now when I am assured (still much to my grateful surprise) that it has value for other people, I feel diffident, reluctant as it were to expose my world of imagination to possibly contemptuous eyes and ears. But for the encouragement of C.S.L. I do ( Read more... )