J.R.R. Tolkien Autograph Letter Signed and Annotated Old English Literature Questionnaire.

TOLKIEN, J.R.R.

$48,000.00

Item Number: 121974

Rare autograph letter signed by the author of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien regarding a list of 50 questions he has composed examining Old English Literature.

The one-page autograph letter signed by Tolkien reads in full, “1 Alfred Street St. Giles Oxford Mar: 17th 1920. Dear Miss Duncan, I enclose a ‘mixed bag’ of 50 questions on the OE period – some of them on ‘Beowulf’ (exclusive of special points of commentary), some more general. A few may be of use to you (many are culled from past papers etc.: those of last year are marked). They are not intended to by models of clear questioning , but to suggest enquiries. The easily available critical writings that might help are all 150 few. I hoped some time to make out something like a select bibliography but I am enormously pressed for time this vacation, and I am ever afraid no such thing will have been done by me in time to be of use to you. I am yours sincerely JRR Tolkien.”

The three-page typed list of 50 questions with autograph emendations by Tolkien is entitled “Old English Literature Questions.” Tolkien has inserted a comedic addition “lumbering about in potbellied equanimity” to the question: “A gluttonous race of Jutes and Angles, capable of no grand combinations not dreaming of heroic toll, and silence, and endurance, such as lead to the high places of this universe, and the golden mountain tone where dwell the spirits of the dawn’ (Carlyle). How far would your reading of Old English poetry land you to modify this estimate?”

Tolkien has also added a 51st question in his hand at the conclusion of the questionnaire, “Give an account of one important ins. of English poetry. Indicate its value for our knowledge of the subject as a whole.”

In fine condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. An extraordinary pairing, offering a unique glimpse into Tolkien’s broad literary knowledge and influences.

Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. He specialized in English philology at university and in 1915 graduated with Old Norse as his special subject. Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for constructing languages. The most developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin, the etymological connection between which formed the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of esthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elvenlatin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish, Welsh, English, and Greek. J.R.R. Tolkien's fully realized fantasy world won over generations of children, and dazzled adults with its deft interweaving of medieval legend and made-up languages, maps, and creatures. Tolkien legitimized the modern fantasy genre, and provided the 1960's counterculture with antiwar, back-to-Eden icons." (NYPL Books of the Century 199). His Lord of the Rings Trilogy, preceded by The Hobbit which introduced the character of Bilbo Baggins, has has went on to become the third best selling novel of all-time with 150 million copies sold.