While much remains unknown the essence of this man is shared. In total, the book covers decades of the author's life. While for readers these are impressive, for writers they represent often hard won victories and may well be worth crying over. One is a relative and close friend, whereas the other is a representative of one of publishing houses with whom the author gets actual contracts. The recipients of the letters also indicates who was prominent at the time, and also which relationships were. While any individual one does not provide a full account of the situation, the composite set of letters allows readers to develop a relatively full and rich picture of what his life is really like. These naturally include others, often as parts of anecdotes. The letters cover quite a variety of the aspects and areas of his life. He has used omission for discretion in this case, although he clarifies that in general, the author was not secretive. This reveals a helpful conscientiousness on the part of the editor. Whenever the traditional 3 dots '.' appear, readers can be certain that JRR Tolkien did that himself within the original letter.

He provides a clear delineation of the system used to refer to these: He uses 4 dots '.' to indicate that he has omitted information.

For this reason, Christopher comments on how this quality was used to select the most suitable letters. The presumption is that the main target audience of the book is a fan of the author's fiction. In the case of the letters to the woman who was the focus of his love life, Christopher Tolkien explains that he is not willing to expose such personal information of JRR Tolkien. The book was published in 1981.ĭuring the Introduction, the assistant explains that he has made a number of omissions. Christopher is the younger of JRR's two sons. The work has been compiled and edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the help of Christopher Tolkien who is a descendant. Included are those years that he spent writing his most famous fiction books: The Lord of the Rings series and The Simarillion. This collection of letters covers a large portion of his adult life. This book is a nonfiction collection of letters by one of the most popular genre fiction novelists of the 20th century.

The letters of tolkien