We are exactly one month away from the release of the Rings of Power on Prime! Discussions range from excitement to anger, but I am waiting. With all the terrible things going on in the world, we could use a decent adaptation. And what better way to celebrate than with Tolkien's August Letters.
There is one important letter right off the bat! On August 31st, 1938 he wrote a letter to Mr. Furth stating that he has begun working on a sequel to The Hobbit. This sequel we know as The Lord of the Rings. One wonderful addition to this letter is that he mentions that C.S. Lewis is more than pleased with its progress! (Tolkien, 1938) Many know JRR Tolkien because of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but if you have been following my Tolkien Tuesday posts for some time, then you know that these stories came later and some of his lesser-known stories were actually the first ones he began. But fast forward to 1953, and Tolkien writes his first ideas for the titles of The Lord of the Rings. He was not thrilled about splitting up the book into three parts. His first title ideas were The Return of Shadow, The Shadow Lengthens, and The Return of the King, ultimately settled with The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King less than 10 days later.
I don't think I can go a month without addressing Tolkien's sass. He had no problem stating his opinion and took great pride in his work and mentions more than once that he wrote the Middle Earth Legendarium for himself and then shared it with the world. This letter addresses the illustrations for Farmer Giles:
"The giant is passable-though the artist is a poor drawer of trees. The dragon is absurd..."
August 5th, 1948
"The artist is a poor drawer of trees..." that tells you all that you need to know. This is probably the harshest criticism Tolkien had ever given.
On August 29th, 1952, Tolkien writes to Rayner Unwin and discusses The Lord of the Rings publication. However, the most fascinating part for me is what he mentions next:
"I have recently made some tape recordings of parts of The Hobbit and The Lord (notably the Gollum-passages and some pieces of Elvish) and was much surprised to discover their effectiveness as recitations, and (if I may say so) my own effectiveness as a narrator, I do a very pretty Gollum and Treebeard. Could not the BBC be interested?"
August 29th, 1952
I wish there were more recordings of his readings. There are a few that you can find on Youtube.
In the August letters ranging from 1955 to 1967:
Tolkien mentions of his trips to Italy which he loved and wishes he could speak Italian. Also, his unhappiness with the naming of a hydrofoil. It was named Shadowfax and he lamented that copyright rules did not apply to names and he would not have given them permission to use the name.
There is also the death of C.S. Lewis which Tolkien grieved.
He also discusses "fan theories" and how ridiculous they are, as he did not intend for there to be any secret meanings to the stories. But he does admit that the theories amuse him.
But then that brings us to 1973. If you don't know, Tolkien passed away in September 1973, so these August letters are the last.
The August 4th, 1973 he mentions that he has lost confidence in writing The Silmarillion. This breaks my heart because it is obvious that he desperately wanted to finish it. I am glad his son took up the torch, but it really meant so much to him. He wanted publishers to want The Silmarillion as much as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The last letter was written to his daughter, Priscilla only 4 days before he died.
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