The Sheila Variations

The Hobbit of Oxford

So I have begun the letters of JRR Tolkien (thank you, Ann Marie!!). I will definitely have to post some excerpts here.

I love reading letters of writers, anyway. Gives me chills - to hear a writer discuss what will end up being a great or a classic work of literature - and the writer has no idea of what is to come.

Lucy Maud Montgomery's letters are like that. Her journals, too. She will write, "I am working on something now which is very different for me. It's about a little red-headed orphan girl. This will be different - there will be no moral to the story. It will just be the story of what happens to this little girl."

She had made her success in writing short stories with major morals to them - things that could be taught in Sunday school. She was sick of it. She wanted to write about human beings. She didn't think anyone would read it, she didn't even think it would get published.

And lo and behold, it turned out to be Anne of Green Gables.

Tolkien's letters, so far, give me the same chill.

He has completed The Hobbit and people are already wondering: What next? What happens to the Hobbits next? He had not written The Hobbit for there to be a sequel. He was stuck. But then in a letter to his publisher he says, "Here is the first chapter of a new book about Hobbits. It's called 'A Long Expected Party'. Give it to your son to read - let me know what he thinks."

A Long Expected Party is the first chapter of the Ring trilogy.

I also just LOVE how he wants a child to read it. Children are the true judges. Look at what happened to Harry Potter!!

Posted by sheila