The Fellowship of the Ring
The publisher apparently only printed 3,500 copies (o ye, of little faith!). It went into a second printing in just 6 weeks. And today – more than 30 million copies have been sold.
If you’re interested, read the review of the book, written by WH Auden, in The New York Times, when it first came out.
Auden writes:
All Quests are concerned with some numinous Object, the Waters of Life, the Grail, buried treasure etc.; normally this is a good Object which it is the Hero’s task to find or to rescue from the Enemy, but the Ring of Mr. Tolkien’s story was made by the Enemy and is so dangerous that even the good cannot use it without being corrupted.
Auden’s so wonderful. He concludes with:
Mr. Tolkien is fortunate in possessing an amazing gift for naming and a wonderfully exact eye for description; by the time one has finished his book one knows the histories of Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves and the landscape they inhabit as well as one knows one’s own childhood.
Lastly, if one is to take a tale of this kind seriously, one must feel that, however superficially unlike the world we live in its characters and events may be, it nevertheless holds up the mirror to the only nature we know, our own; in this, too, Mr. Tolkien has succeeded superbly, and what happened in the year of the Shire 1418 in the Third Age of Middle Earth is not only fascinating in A. D. 1954 but also a warning and an inspiration. No fiction I have read in the last five years has given me more joy than “The Fellowship of the Ring.”
In honor of this event, I will re-post what is, perhaps, my favorite letter that Tolkien ever wrote.
Here’s the back-story.
The German publishing firm of Rutten & Loening contacted Allen & Unwin in 1938 (the publishers of The Hobbit) and wanted to negotiate with them for a German translation of the book. But first and foremost, they wanted to know if Tolkien was of “arisch” origin. (Aryan) Tolkien wrote a brief note to Stanley Unwin, saying that he wanted to refuse to give them an answer. He didn’t want to add to “the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine” by comfirming or denying. However – he also didn’t want to ruin his chances of The Hobbit being read in Germany. So he submitted to Mr. Unwin two drafts of letters to the German publishers, and left it up to Unwin to decide. I’m not sure if the one I post here is the one that ended up being sent – but it was the found in Unwin’s papers.
It has to be the best, most articulate bitch-slap ever.
25 July 1938
To Rutten & Loening Verlag
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your letter … I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-iranian; as far as I am aware noone of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject – which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.
I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully
J.R.R. Tolkien
That’s awesome. I love both Auden and Tolkien. Thanks for sharing something that I never would have found on my own.
“best, most articulate bitch-slap ever.”
ha ha ha ha! Yes! I love your description of it. (It always makes me happy when an honorable person like Tolkein can take something offered in a dishonorable manner, and turn it around to show the other person just how dishonorable they are being. Probably the irony of his statement was totally lost on the German publisher, but it’s still cheering to an American chick to read it, some sixty years later).
yay for Tolkein! yay for Auden!
I have to say, one of the books I keep on hand, for those times when I am just SO down and just SO fed up with life-as-it-is now, is “The Hobbit.” Immediately improves my mood.
Maybe this is trite, but whenever I read that letter it still actually brings tears to my eyes. It completely refutes the whole ridiculous “Tolkien was a racist” crap that seems for whatever reason to never die.
Dave – this sentence gets me choked up:
“I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.”
“I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.”
Indeed. Since for Tolkien it was all downhill for the English language after 1066, he may not have noticed it, but for me I can’t help hearing the echo in that phrase of Nathan Hale’s “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” A little random, I know. Dad’s a Nathan Hale Fellow with the Association of Former Intelligence Officers…and if I said any more than that, I’d probably have to kill you. ;-)