Facsimile of first edition of 'The Hobbit'

[William Cloud Hicklin]

From Letter No. 13 (31 August 1937):

By the way. I meant some time ago to comment on the additional matter that appears on the jacket. I don't suppose it is a very important item in launching The Hobbit (while that book is only one minor incident in your concerns); so I hope you will take the ensuing essay in good part, and allow me the pleasure of explaining things (the professor will out), even if it does not appear useful. I am in your hands, if you think that is the right note. Strict truth is, I suppose, not necessary (or even desirable). But I have a certain anxiety lest the H.M.Co seize upon the words and exaggerate the inaccuracy to falsehood. And reviewers are apt to lean on hints. At least I am when performing that function.

Nursery: I have never had one, and the study has always been the place for such amusements. In any case is the age-implication right? I should have said 'the nursery' ended about 8 when children go forth to school. That is too young. My eldest boy was thirteen when he heard the serial. It did not appeal to the younger ones who had to grow up to it successively.

Lent: we must pass that (though strictly it was forced on the friends by me). The MS. certainly wandered about, but it was not, as far as I know, ever read to children, and only read by one child (a girl of 12-13), before Mr Unwin tried it out.

Abstruse: I do not profess an 'abstruse' subject – not qua 'Anglo-Saxon'. Some folk may think so, but I do not like encouraging them. Old English and Icelandic literature are no more remote from human concerns, or difficult to acquire cheaply, than commercial Spanish (say). I have tried both. In any case – except for the runes (Anglo-Saxon) and the dwarf-names (Icelandic), neither used with antiquarian accuracy, and both regretfully substituted to avoid abstruseness for the genuine alphabets and names of the mythology into which Mr Baggins intrudes – I am afraid my professional knowledge is not directly used. The magic and mythology and assumed 'history' and most of the names (e.g. the epic of the Fall of Gondolin) are, alas!, drawn from unpublished inventions, known only to my family, Miss Griffiths and Mr Lewis. I believe they give the narrative an air of 'reality' and have a northern atmosphere. But I wonder whether one should lead the unsuspecting to imagine it all comes out of the 'old books', or tempt the knowing to point out that it does not?

'Philology' – my real professional bag of tricks – may be abstruse, and perhaps more comparable to Dodgson's maths. So the real parallel (if one exists: I feel very much that it breaks down if examined)* lies in the fact that both these technical subjects in any overt form are absent. The only philological remark (I think) in The Hobbit is on p. 221 (lines 6-7 from end): an odd mythological way of referring to linguistic philosophy, and a point that will (happily) be missed by any who have not read Barfield (few have), and probably by those who have. I am afraid this stuff of mine is really more comparable to Dodgson's amateur photography, and his song of Hiawatha's failure than to Alice.

Professor: a professor at play rather suggests an elephant in its bath – as Sir Walter Raleigh said of Professor Jo Wright in a sportive mood at a viva. Strictly (I believe) Dodgson was not a 'professor', but a college lecturer — though he was kind to my kind in making the 'professor' the best character (unless you prefer the mad gardener) in Sylvie & Bruno. Why not 'student'? The word has the added advantage that Dodgson's official status was Student of Christ Church. If you think it
good, and fair (the compliment to The Hobbit is rather high) to maintain the comparison – Lookingglass ought to be mentioned. It is much closer in every way. ....

[Faramir Jones]

Thanks William, for putting up that passage, from Letter 15 of the published Letters, of Tolkien's remarks on the second part of The Hobbit's dust jacket's text.

To help people, I'm just going to add explanations for some of the references in the passage, most of which are endnotes by Humphrey Carpenter, editor of the Letters (referred to as HC), and one footnote by Tolkien:

Line 4: H.M.Co: Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston, Massachusetts, who published The Hobbit in the USA.
Line 15: Miss Griffiths: Elaine Griffiths of St. Anne's College, Oxford, who worked with Tolkien as a research student during the 1930s. (HC)
Line 15: Mr Lewis: C. S. Lewis.
Line 19: *: '*Is the presence of 'conundrums' in Alice a parallel to echoes of Northern myth in The Hobbit?'. (Tolkien's footnote)
Lines 19-20: p. 221 (lines 6-7 from end): 'To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful'. (The Hobbit, Chapter 12)(HC)
Line 20: Barfield: Owen Barfield, friend of C. S. Lewis and author of Poetic Diction (1928), an account of the development of language from its early roots in mythology. (HC)
Line 24: Sir Walter Raleigh: Professor of English Literature at Oxford, 1904-22. (HC)
Line 24: viva: A viva voce is the oral part of Oxford University examinations. (HC)
Line 26: Sylvie and Bruno: Published in 2 volumes in 1889-1893, it was the last work by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) to be published in his lifetime.