Finally I am, of course, very grateful too to those many people who lent letters. Most of these are acknowledged in the book, in that their names appear as the recipients of the letters; in those few cases where letters were lent but have not been included, I must both thank those concerned and apologise to them for the fact that their letter or letters were omitted for reasons of space. I must also thank the various organisations and individuals who helped me: members of the Tolkien Society of Great Britain, the American Tolkien Society, and the Mythopoeic Society, who publicised our wish to trace letters, and in some cases put us in touch with owners of letters; the BBC Written Archives, the Bodleian Library, the Oxford University Press and its Dictionary Department, the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin, and the Wade Collection at Wheaton College, Illinois, all of whom made letters available to us; the various executors (especially the Rev. Walter Hooper) and other people who helped us trace letters to persons now deceased; and finally Douglas Anderson, who helped greatly and generously in a number of ways with the preparation of the book. He and Charles Noad kindly read proofs for us.
Despite the length of this volume, and the great number of letters we have collected, there can be no doubt that much of Tolkien’s correspondence still remains untraced. Any reader knowing of further letters which might deserve publication is encouraged to contact the publishers of this book, in the hope that it may be possible to add them to a second edition.
Humphrey Carpenter
LETTERS
1 To Edith Bratt
[Tolkien became engaged to Edith Bratt, whom he had met during his adolescence in Birmingham, in January 1913, when he was twenty-one. The following letter was written during his final year as an undergraduate at Oxford, when he was studying English Language & Literature, and at the same time was drilling in the University Officers’ Training Corps as a preparation for joining the army.]
[Not dated; October 1914]
Exeter College, Oxford
My Edith darling:
Yes I was rather surprised by your card of Sat. morning and rather sorry because I knew my letter would have to wander after you. You do write splendid letters to me, little one; I am such a pig to you though. It seems age[s] since I wrote. I have had a busy (and very wet!) week end.
Friday was completely uneventful and Sat too though we had a drill all afternoon and got soaked several times and our rifles got all filthy and took ages to clean afterwards.
I spent most of the rest of those days indoors reading: I had an essay, as I told you, but I didn’t get it finished as Shakespeare came up and then (Lieutenant) Thompson1 (very healthy and well in his new uniform) and prevented me doing work on the Sabbath, as I had proposed to do. . . . . I went to St Aloysius for High Mass – and I rather enjoyed it – it is such ages since I heard one for Fr. F.2 wouldn’t let me go when I was at the Oratory last week.
I had to pay a duty call to the Rector3 in the afternoon which was very boring. His wife really is appalling! I got away as soon as possible and fled back in the rain to my books. Then I went and saw Mr Sisam4 and told him I could not finish my essay till Wed: and stayed and talked with him for some time, then I went and had an interesting talk with that quaint man Earp5 I have told you of and introduced him (to his great delight) to the ‘Kālevalā’ the Finnish ballads.
Amongst other work I am trying to turn one of the stories – which is really a very great story and most tragic – into a short story somewhat on the lines of Morris’ romances with chunks of poetry in between. . . . . 6
I have got to go to the college library now and get filthy amongst dusty books – and then hang about and see the Bursar. . . . .
R.7
2 From a letter to Edith Bratt
27 November 1914
I did about 4 hrs. [work] 9.20–1 or so in the morning: drilled all afternoon went to a lecture 5–6 and after dinner (with a man called Earp) had to go to a meeting of the Essay Club – an informal kind of last gasp [?]. There was a bad paper but an interesting discussion. It was also composition meeting and I read ‘Earendel’ which was well criticised.1
3 From a letter to Edith Bratt
26 November 1915
[After graduating at Oxford with a First Class in English, Tolkien was commissioned in the Lancashire Fusiliers. This letter was written from Rugeley Camp in Staffordshire, where he was training. Meanwhile he was working on a poem, ‘Kortirion among the Trees’, suggested by Warwick, where Edith Bratt was living. The poem describes a ‘fading town upon a little hill’, where ‘linger yet the Lonely Companies. . . . The holy fairies and immortal elves.’ For ‘the T.C.B.S.’ see no. 5.]
The usual kind of morning standing about and freezing and then trotting to get warmer so as to freeze again. We ended up by an hour’s bomb-throwing with dummies. Lunch and a freezing afternoon. All the hot days of summer we doubled about at full speed and perspiration, and now we stand in icy groups in the open being talked at! Tea and another scramble – I fought for a place at the stove and made a piece of toast on the end of a knife: what days! I have written out a pencil copy of ‘Kortirion’. I hope you won’t mind my sending it to the T.C.B.S. I want to send them something: I owe them all long letters. I will start on a careful ink copy for little you now and send it tomorrow night, as I don’t think I shall get more than one copy typed (it is so long). No on second thoughts I am sending you the pencil copy (which is very neat) and shall keep the T.C.B.S. waiting till I can make another.
4 From a letter to Edith Bratt
2 March 1916
This miserable drizzling afternoon I have been reading up old military lecture-notes again:— and getting bored with them after an hour and a half. I have done some touches to my nonsense fairy language – to its improvement.1
I often long to work at it and don’t let myself ‘cause though I love it so it does seem such a mad hobby!
5 To G. B. Smith
[While they were at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, in 1911, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed themselves into an unofficial and semi-secret society which they called ‘the T.C.B.S.’, initials standing for ‘Tea Club and Barrovian Society’, an allusion to their fondness for having tea in the school library, illicitly, and in Barrow’s Stores near the school. Since leaving King Edward’s, the T.C.B.S. had kept in close touch with each other, and in December 1914 had held a ‘Council’ at Wiseman’s London home, following which Tolkien had begun to devote much energy to writing poetry – the result, he believed, of the shared ideals and mutual encouragement of the T.C.B.S. Wiseman was now serving in the Navy, Gilson and Smith were sent out to the Somme, and Tolkien arrived on that battlefield, as Battalion Signalling Officer to the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers, just as the Allied offensive of 1 July was beginning. On that day, Rob Gilson was killed in action, but news of his death did not reach the other members of the T.C.B.S. for some weeks. Geoffrey Smith sent Tolkien a note about it, and later passed him a letter from Christopher Wiseman.]
12 August 1916
11th Lancashire Fusiliers, B.E.F., France
My dear old Geoffrey,
Thank you indeed for Christopher’s letter. I have thought much of things