Contents of this entry
Conversation is part of the evidenceEditions, citation and reading routesPrimary referencesRelated encyclopedia entries
Conversation is part of the evidence
The collection includes letters, drafts and extracts addressed to different people under different circumstances. A publishing proposal, advice to a son and an answer to a reader do not serve the same purpose. Each can illuminate Tolkien’s intentions, but none should automatically be detached from its audience and treated as a universal pronouncement.
The long letter to Milton Waldman gives a major retrospective account of the mythology and its relation to The Lord of the Rings. The letter to W. H. Auden of June 1955 provides another route through language, literary taste and composition. The discussion addressed to Eileen Elgar in September 1963 is especially valuable after reading the novel’s ending.
Editions, citation and reading routes
The revised and expanded edition changes the available context. When citing an entry, give its recipient and date, collection number where applicable, and the edition used. Page numbers alone are not reliably portable between formats and editions. A draft should remain identified as a draft when its wording matters to an argument.
The volume is not a complete autobiography or the entirety of Tolkien’s surviving correspondence. Nor is it the same book as Letters from Father Christmas, the illustrated imaginative letters made for his children.
Our dedicated letters guide offers eight annotated starting points with links to the Tolkien Estate’s available selection. Reading them alongside the biography and the relevant fiction is more rewarding than gathering isolated quotations. The letters restore uncertainty, wit and the practical circumstances of work to an author who can otherwise appear to have delivered his whole world in a single completed act.
Primary references
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, editorial Introduction, individual headings and index, 1981 and 2023 editions; Tolkien Estate, selected letters; Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, notes and corrections to the indexes. Further reading: /tolkien-letters/ and /jrr-tolkien-biography/.
Related encyclopedia entries
Explore the book library · Choose a reading route · Explore Tolkien’s letters
